


There's a Tide in the Affairs of Men

by Steerpike13713



Series: What's Past is Prologue [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amnesia, Blind Character, Brainwashing, Child Death, Essentially a Founders fic, False Identity, False Memories, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, Past Child Abuse, Period Typical Attitudes, Time Travel, War, but with some snippets to hint at the truth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-22 08:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 53,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2501282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steerpike13713/pseuds/Steerpike13713
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'So they lived in great joy and if ever they remembered their life in this world it was only as one remembers a dream.' - C. S. Lewis, <i>The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe</i><br/>Or, the story of how Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny became the Founders of Hogwarts, lost themselves, found themselves and managed to live, if not in great happiness, than certainly in great success.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The fires could be seen for miles around, the flat fen country turning what had once been a village into a beacon that lit up the night like the coming of the last judgement. Houses, barns, farms, granaries…it didn’t matter. If it could burn, they had burnt it. If it could die, they had killed it. They’d even tried to set fire to the peat, though it was thick and waterlogged and would not burn for long. _They’d have burnt the marsh itself if they could_ , Gríma thought, and shuddered. The only mercy was that he could not see the tree from which his parents’ bodies hung, side-by-side, his mother’s feet still kicking feebly as she twisted in the breeze that blew smoke into Gríma’s face, making him cough and leaving his weak eyes streaming. He could hear it, though, the irregular sounds of her breath hitching and wheezing, could see the twin black blurs of her feet as they twitched, just in front of his hiding-place in the undergrowth. The marsh water was soaking through his clothes now, but Gríma was used to that. He was a fen-lander born and bred, had never been entirely dry a day in his life.

 _“They are coming,”_ the water-snakes hissed in his ear as they twined about him, their forked tongues tickling at his ears, and he suppressed a sob as the memory of the last time he had hidden in this pond rose up in his mind, desperately trying to muffle his laughter so the other village kids wouldn’t catch him hiding among the reeds. Nelda had always managed to find him sooner or later, but then, she was the best of them at hide-and-seek, for all that she was the smallest child in the village after Gríma himself. Nelda was dead now. He’d heard her scream as they cut her down. Her mother had fair hauled her and Aethelred out of the village when they’d seen the torches coming, but it hadn’t made any difference in the end. The smell of roasting meat was thick in Gríma’s nostrils, mixing with the wood-smoke of the burning houses, the sour sting of the tar they’d used for water-proofing.

He could hear the waterlogged grass squelching under boots nearby and shrank back into the reeds, ducking under the water just low enough that he’d be able to hear their conversation and thanking every god he had ever heard worshipped that he was dark enough to disappear entirely among the weeds.

“That all of them?”

“All we could find. Right down to the spawn.”

“Wait until the last fires burn out and check what remains for survivors. No need to get sloppy now.”

“Aye- Here, Finnian, look there-” Gríma froze. The footsteps came closer.

“I’ll be. Damned frog-eaters practically live in the meres. I’d forgotten. Fish him out, then, let’s see what we’ve caught.”

And then there were hands, hard as iron on his arms and Gríma struggled against them with all the meagre strength he possessed, only for the hands to tighten with every feeble twist and kick and scratch. He raised wide green eyes to where the man’s face should be-

And there it was, not a blurred pink shape as other men’s were but real and clear and crisp as nothing ever had been, flat and snakelike and…terrible. Slit nostrils and eyes as red and gleaming as the fires behind him. A long, forked tongue flicked out over his teeth as he smiled.

_“Kill the spare!”_

Then there was nothing but high, cruel laughter and green light, and Gríma twisted away-

And a man with no name and a mind like a broken mirror awoke, panting, in a dungeon cell deep underground, a face he could put no name to still imprinted on his sightless eyes.


	2. Part 1, Chapter 1

**PART ONE: ROWENA**

Rowena came to consciousness slowly, aching all over, her head ringing such that she was half-afraid it would crack open. Oh, gods have mercy, she hadn’t let Helga talk her into joining in a drinking contest, had she? No. She had enough faith in her own character – or at least her knowledge of Helga’s apparently bottomless capacity for drink – not to believe that. She tried to sit up, failed, and was pushed gently back down again by big, gentle hands with rough skin and nails as hard as horn, a voice as deep and rolling as thunder murmuring soothing words overhead, something cool against her lips.

When she woke again, it was dark and quiet and her head, while still sore, no longer felt as though Thor the Thunderer was attempting to break out of it with his hammer. And she really had been spending too much time around Godric and his brothers if that was the first comparison that came to mind. She dragged herself upright, wincing at the ache in her muscles, which felt strangely rubbery and were far slower than usual in obeying her commands. Winchester, the Winchester road, they had been less than an hour’s ride away-

“R’ena? Rowena?” The voice was familiar, and she stirred, one foot catching something hard and bony. “Re’m fydh!” Godric cursed, and it was definitely Godric. No-one else of their company was going to be swearing in Cornish, for a start.

“Sorry,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows and wincing as the pounding in her head intensified again. She peered around the hut- no, no, not a hut, a barn, complete with hens nesting in the rafters – with bleary eyes, feeling as though something furry had crawled into her mouth and died there. “Where are the others? Are they all right? The horses-”

“Bolted,” Godric said, in a blessedly low voice, “Grím and Helga went to try and replace everything, but I’m not holding out much hope. Oh, yeah, and the healer left this for you.” He produced a battered leather tankard from somewhere in the straw. Rowena took it, wrinkling her nose at the smell. The contents did nothing to allay her suspicions, being a murky brown with unidentifiable floating bits which Rowena for once had absolutely no desire to find out more about. It was quite possibly the most unappetising thing Rowena had ever set eyes on. Quite a tall order, for someone who had borne witness to the unholy spectacle that was Gríma Fen-Born presented with a plate of baked eels.

“Um,” she ventured, “What’s…in it?”

Godric shrugged. “No idea. Cleared my head right up, though, and Helga nearly had to force it down my throat to get me to drink any.”

If only to prove she was more mature than Godric, Rowena raised the cup to her lips and had trouble keeping herself from gagging at the taste of the first mouthful. It burnt like fire on the way down, tasted like rotten eggs, but once that shock had faded she had to admit that her head did feel a bit better.

“We’ll need fresh horses, then, even if we have to use workhorses,” she said, passing the tankard back to Godric and looking around her, “I don’t imagine we’d be able to get much more in a place like this even if we could afford it, but we can’t carry that much baggage on foot.”

She could tell from the look on Godric’s face what had happened before he even opened his mouth. “We don’t have any baggage,” he said moodily, scowling. “We lost everything. Helga’s bow’s gone, your books…everything. We’ve not even got the clothes on our backs – the villagers gave us them, ours had to be cut off-”

Rowena let out a long breath. That was a severe loss indeed – the bow could be replaced, but nothing Helga could make on the march would be so good as a professionally-crafted one. More important were their letters of recommendation, also lost, and she could not help a pang for the books, those few volumes of her father’s former library that she’d been able to take with her in her flight from Scotland. Strange to be returning that way now at sixteen, after the way she’d left her homeland four years prior.

“It’s not that bad,” Godric said hurriedly, scrambling over to sit beside her, “Gríma had the pouch with the money on him and not in his saddlebags – we’re not penniless – and Helga says she reckons we can afford passage north if we’re sparing about it and don’t spend too many nights in inns. Maybe catch and sell some game along the way, while we’re at it.”

“Selling game,” Rowena said, half-laughing, shaking her head. “What my father would say if he could see me now!” She could imagine it all too well – a thane’s daughter, selling meat at market like a common slattern? Oh, he’d have flown into a fury over that one, if he knew. She couldn’t help the rush of fondness she felt at that, or the sting of pain that followed it. He had got her safe away, and ruled as thane still, but she could never return to the castle where she had been brought up now, and was not even sure she wished it.

Godric snorted at that, but then, Godric would. “My Aunt Maud would have had something to say about that,” he said, grinning. “So would Helga, for that matter.”

“I’ll take your word for that first part,” Rowena said with a wry smile. From what she’d heard of Helga’s fierce mother, the landed knight’s daughter who had given it all up to become a peasant herb-woman in the valleys of the Welsh marches, it was probably true enough. “You really think we might make it?” she asked, hating that she didn’t already know the answer.

“Gríma thinks so, and he should know, he’s more used to going without than either of us.”

The barn was warm, full of soft rustlings and squeakings in the evening twilight, and Rowena might have turned her nose up at it under any other circumstances, but now she was sinking down into the straw, her limbs apparently entirely outside her own power.

“He’s certain, then?”

Godric shrugged. “So he says, but you know what Grím’s like.” They shared an eloquent look. Rowena sighed. You never could get Gríma to admit he wasn’t sure of something unless you badgered him into it. He’d _say_ he didn’t know willingly enough, but when he had a pet theory he’d be like a mastiff with a bone, gnawing it down to splinters. It had been her despair of him for four years now, and still he kept at it even as he was proven wrong time and again.

“Helga, then? She’s got more sense than he does in that,”

“She agrees with him, though she says it’ll be tight.” He shrugged. “I never thought I’d have to know much about money. Having or not having was enough trouble all on its own and ninth sons barely get anything even in the great lords’ houses.” There was a sulky, resentful note in his voice now, far too familiar to her ears.

“Well,” Rowena said, feigning brightness, “Maybe you’ll get snapped up by some great knight or other at the fair when we get there and make your fortune that way? Stranger things have happened.” Stranger things, she thought, would have to if they were all to come out of this safe and with good positions to their names.

Godric snorted, “More likely I’ll end up slaving away for some taskmaster or other making barrels or something. Doing household accounts is more likely – they’re the only ones being able to read and write’s going to mean anything to.”

“You’re not a bad fighter,” Rowena said, feeling she ought to say something. “You were forever brawling with the village boys, you and Grím and Helga.”

He grinned at her. “A couple of scuffles isn’t what I’d call endless, R’ena.” That was Cornish, that nickname, for if ever there was a people addicted to the apostrophe it was them. Rowena had no idea why she was suddenly noting that, though, as though she’d never thought of it before.

She was about to say something else in answer, though she wasn’t sure what, when the barn door swung open to admit Helga ferch Matilda, frecklier than ever from days spent journeying in the late August sun. Behind her, like a shadow, trailed Gríma, small and skinny and a little unsteady on his feet still. The last remnants of the headache they all seemed to have woken up with, probably, but it was odd that it had persisted so long in him. Was he sickening again? He certainly looked worse, with deep purple shadows beneath his eyes and when he raised a hand to adjust the new pack on his shoulder the back of it was bloody.

“You were a long time,” Godric said by way of greeting. Gríma shrugged.

“Took a while to convince them we didn’t want to be tret like children,” he said, his coarse Fen accent thickening slightly with annoyance. “And no hope of even enough provisions to be worth bartering for a pony.”

“We did the best we could,” Helga added, setting down her own pack, “But their harvest was poor last year and this year doesn’t look likely to be any better – no wonder they’re so reluctant to sell.”

Gríma frowned. “I hadn’t heard that,” he said, turning his head uselessly towards Helga.

“I know,” Helga replied, shrugging. “You didn’t ask. The miller’s wife sat me down and told me everything after a while – she gave us that reduced rate on bread from her bake-house, remember?”

That, if anything, only made Gríma’s expression darken further as he looked back at the barn door. “I might not have pressed so hard, if I’d known…”

“Good thing you didn’t, then,” Helga said, kneeling in the straw to sort the packs out. “Give me a hand, will you? And you, Rickon. Ro, you up to it?”

“I should think not,” came yet another new voice, and all of their heads, even Gríma’s, whipped around to see who it was.

The man who stood in the barn door was not tall, though he sounded as though he should have been, but short and broad and quite possibly the _squarest_ person Rowena had ever seen. He had a square, honest face, large square hands and a blocky sort of body, as though he had been drawn out in lines and the artist not come back to smooth them over after.

“You’re the healer?” she asked, pushing herself up further, or trying to, as it made the world twist in strange ways.

“I am. You’ve had a lucky escape, you and your friends.”

Godric nodded. “Closer than any of us would’ve liked,” he agreed, “But we can make it on our own from here, if we’re careful.”

“If you say so. But if you won’t take help, I can at least offer advice. You were careless in coming here – your wands not even half hidden.” All of their hands went to check their wands at that, just out of nerves, and Rowena felt the healer’s eyes on them, too sharp, too clear. “In future,” the healer went on, not seeming to have noticed, “Try to find some better way of concealing them. Pockets’re too obvious, and given the state you were in when you were found it’s a mercy they weren’t burned with you.”

“We’ll remember that,” Godric put in, before either of the others could make matters worse by snapping. “You’re- you’re one of us, then?”

“Nay. M’parents and sister were, but I didn’t inherit it.” There was no bitterness in his voice, Rowena noticed with a jolt, no resentment. He might as well have been talking about the weather. She’d never heard that from one of his sort before. “I’m assuming you’re headed for the apprenticing fair in the borders?”

“Yeah,” Helga said, “We were going to pay to join a convoy at Winchester – I suppose,” she added, looking downcast, “We’ll have to go it alone now.”

“Not necessarily. They’re always looking for guards on the convoys, and they’re not what you’d call fussy about credentials.”

“We’ll bear it in mind,” Rowena promised, though she couldn’t think she’d be at all useful for the sort of work the healer – what was his name? – referred to. But they had to go north somehow, and if this was the only way, so be it.

“Old, for apprentices, aren’t you,” the man said, “And that one’s liable to find more trouble than most,” he gestured to Gríma, who folded his arms defensively, hunching forward in the rough brown cloak the villagers had provided him.

“I _can_ hear you, you know,” he said darkly, “Just say it, will you! No-one’s going to want a blind apprentice. I know. I’ll work something out.” He’d been saying that all journey, though he was still very vague on what this ‘something’ was going to be. By the look on his face, the healer wasn’t any more impressed by this insistence than Rowena had been. Still, he declined to comment further, remarking instead on the best route. If they made a good go of it they could reach Winchester within days, though the journey north would take far longer. The equinox was not even a month away – they would have to hurry if they were going to reach the fair in time. A convoy would take longer than a small group travelling on foot, obliged to match the speed of its slowest member. But on the other hand, four apparently unarmed travellers, magic or no, would attract far more trouble than a larger group with guards to keep the brigands off. At the very least, they would be able to replenish their provisions at Winchester, and from there it was perhaps sixty miles to Lud’s Town. Two days’ journey. Eleven days more from there and they would reach the fair, if they continued to go on foot. Maybe twenty with wagons. Rowena frowned, angry at her own ignorance of how these things worked. In any case, at least thirteen days from Winchester, and that was without considering how long it would take to get to Winchester in the first place. The roads weren’t safe, but then, the roads were never safe, and King Constant did not seem to think his kingdom’s lawlessness as important as his subjects’ immortal souls. Purification through fire, that was his favourite, they said, though the church reserved that penalty for heretics. Witches, everyone knew, were to be hanged. Rowena shook herself. No point in thinking about that now, it would only get them into more trouble. Besides, they were far enough from the capital at Winchester now that Constant and his holy fervour wouldn’t touch them. Hanging was an ugly death, the slow gallows jig as you choked and turned blue and twitched on a public scaffold, but that was nothing at all, so they said, to the agony of the stake.

“-quite sure I can’t persuade you?” the healer was saying, and Rowena realised with a start that more had been said while she was wool-gathering. “You needn’t go all that way for such slim pickings. Lots of blacksmiths’ wives learn the smithing – all of them, near enough.”

“I don’t much fancy making arrowheads for the rest of my life,” Helga said firmly, “And as for marriage-! I’m too young to think of that yet.”

“Older’n half the village girls I’ve seen wed, I’ll warrant,” said the healer, looking at her askance, “But if you’re sure.”

Helga nodded, her jaw set, and the healer subsided.

“You’ve settled all your accounts in the village?” he asked.

“Um…I think so,” said Gríma, looking around at the rest of them, sounding remarkably grateful to be off the subject of apprenticeships.

“Yeah,” Helga said, nodding sharply. “Except – what do you charge, usually, for healing?”

The healer shrugged. “I don’t normally accept money,” he said, “Food and old clothes are more in my line, and people ’round here don’t have that much coin to spend. But, seeing as you’ve not got much else…”

He named a price. It sounded fair enough to Rowena, but the others shared worried looks and tried to haggle it down as best they could, finally settling on something well between the two figures. The healer whistled when Gríma emptied five of the strange little bronze coins they’d dug up on the old Roman mound into his palm.

“Not coinage I’ve seen before, right enough,” he said, biting into one. “But…real bronze, is it?” At the affirmation, he nodded. “Well, then. More than enough for the healing and advice put together.” The coins disappeared into the capacious sleeves of his tunic and he grinned, revealing blackened, crooked teeth. “Pleasure doing business with you all, then,” he said, “I’d say the young lady is fit to sit up now.”

Rowena did so, and found to her surprise that her head had cleared, the spots that had danced in front of her eyes now melted away. “Thank you,” she said, looking up at him. “And…” it seemed shameful to admit it, but, “I still don’t know your name.”

“Ethelbert. Of the Ottery.” Rowena nodded, and Ethelbert arched a brow. “I believe it is customary to answer introductions in kind, lass. It would at least give me something to call you that doesn’t sound like I’m talking to a dog.”

Helga bridled at that, but Godric answered before Rowena could. “I’m Godric of Fox Hollow,” he said, looking around, “This is my cousin, Helga ferch Matilda, and her foster-brother Gríma, and this-”

“I can speak for myself, you know,” Rowena said, “My name is Rowena.” She left it at that, not wanting to risk a byname and no longer sure whether she _had_ a patronymic.

Ethelbert gave a low whistle, “Certainly names to conjure with,” he remarked. “Gríma – ‘mask’, isn’t that?”

“Uh-”

“Makes no odds, but it’s damned unsettling,” Ethelbert went on. “I’d not use it too openly. People tend to remember names like that. Same goes for you,” he added, nodding at Rowena, who started. “And you two’d be advised to cover over that hair of yours – the Muggles think it’s unlucky, and it’s distinctive enough to cause you trouble.”

“We’ve not had any issue this far,” Godric said, sounding mulish.

Ethelbert snorted. “Of course not. You’re a West Country boy born and bred, by the sound of you. Once you leave here, though…” he shook his head. “I’m not trying to gull you. Just bear it in mind.”

“You’re certainly giving a lot of advice for someone who isn’t,” Helga said, plainly stung, her lilting vowels strangely dissonant on Rowena’s ears. “We can manage as we are!”

“You’re hardly more than children, by your own people’s standard,” Ethelbert snapped, “What your families must be thinking to send you off alone-”

“Most of our families are either dead or have disowned us,” Gríma said shortly. “Well, not Godric’s,” he corrected himself, “But the rest of us don’t have anyone to worry by leaving.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Godric said irritably, “You think my mother wouldn’t have kittens if any of you got hurt?”

Rowena could well imagine it – but then, Agnes ferch Elisud had all but adopted all three of them from the moment they’d arrived on her doorstep in various states of disarray. The memory of that one summer just before she’d turned fourteen rose up in her mind, the warm timbre of Agnes’ voice as they – Rowena, Agnes and Helga – laughed over her disastrous early attempts at brewing a love-potion which had eventually proven not only ineffective but outright dangerous before she’d given it up as a bad job and just approached Artus of Fox Hollow on her own.

“Be that as it may,” Ethelbert cut in, “You’re young for what you’re attempting. Are you sure you’ll be able to handle the journey by yourselves?”

They looked at one another.

“We are,” Rowena said, when none of the others spoke up. “Or at least we mean to do it.”

Ethelbert shrugged. “On your own heads be it then.”

*

They slept that night in the warm straw of the hay-loft, with the cattle lowing beneath them and the soft squeaking and rustling of the mice in the straw all around them. Godric had been wary at first, muttering something about spiders, but exhaustion had won out after a while and the sound of his snores reverberated through the barn, audible even over the rain drumming on the leaking roof. Rowena lay in the dark, still plagued by the feeling that she had forgotten something, and that it had been important.

Now, in the dark, it was harder to push the thought away than it had been. She tried to focus on the problems that faced them, and there were many, many of those. Too many, she thought, for the job in hand.

“Ro?” came a low voice in the darkness. Helga. “You awake?”

“Yes.” She rolled over to look at Helga, who was so still that if it weren’t for the slow rise and fall of her chest she could be taken for dead. “Were you telling the truth, before?”

“I don’t know,” Helga replied, shuddering. “Something about that man just rubs me the wrong way. He’s too interested in us.”

Rowena frowned. “It’s not because he’s a Squib, is it? You’ve never said anything against them before-”

Helga’s glare at that was something to behold, making her look uncommonly like a small thundercloud under her mane of red hair. “I don’t have anything against them,” she said shortly, “I just don’t like it when complete strangers start poking around in my business.”

Rowena frowned. “He seemed trustworthy enough to me,” she said, “A bit curious, but finding four people in tattered rags on a hillside after a storm – and witches and wizards at that – it’s no wonder he was curious. Wouldn’t you be?”

“It’s not that,” Helga said, scowling. “It’s- I don’t know. Just something off about him.”

There was silence. Rowena wrapped her cloak closer about herself, shivering a little in the autumn chill. Strange, how the smell brought memories back, crowding in close and so vivid in their colours she almost thought she was seeing them for the first time again. If she was honest with herself, the thought of returning to her own country was a cause of more trepidation than joy to Rowena now. The fire or the rope had been the only choice left to her in Scotland. If things went wrong, it could be the only choice left to her soon enough, with no Agnes of Fox Hollow close at hand to offer her some way out. She shook herself, hating the knot in her throat and wondering why the words _‘Wingardium Leviosia’_ in a child’s high, quaking voice had risen up suddenly in her mind. It was there again, that uncomfortable feeling that there was something _missing_ from her recollections. She tried to grasp it, tried to get some sense of what it was that she hadn’t noticed, but it was no use: like trying to catch fog, the thoughts melted away whenever she thought she had a grip of them.

Just as she was sinking into sleep she thought she might have it – something to do with the storm, and the colour pink, and warthogs, she thought – but she could not hold on to it long before exhaustion took hold of her and she slept.

Her dreams were strange and confused that night – trolls, she remembered later, there were trolls, and feathers, and for some reason three great black boarhounds all barking at her – and she woke in the grey light of obscenely early morning to find Gríma’s face above hers, staring blankly down at her, his hand just inches from her shoulder.

“I’m awake,” she said quickly, pushing herself up on her elbows. “Has Helga-”

“Here,” Helga interjected, and Rowena looked around to see her braiding up her hair and shoving it under a ridiculous knitted cap that made her look uncommonly like her cousin. “I think,” she added, beckoning the others over, “We probably ought to clear out before first light, just in case things take a turn for the worse. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of trouble here.”

“No,” Gríma agreed, “Is there any way of cutting for Lud’s Town straight away? It’d be less dangerous.”

“Am I actually hearing this?” Godric asked, sharing an amused look with Rowena. “Did I just hear you say you wanted to stay _out_ of trouble?”

“I always want to stay out of trouble,” Gríma replied irritably, “Most of the time it finds me all on its own. So, Lud’s Town?”

Rowena considered it. “Well…” Winchester was the closer. Perhaps a day’s journey. A day and a half with the floods. That was less time to be caught up on the roads, attacked by highwaymen or beset by the wolves which still roamed the countryside. But Winchester itself was more dangerous, with King Constant so desperate to make his name as a soul-saver, and with Gríma’s worries…on the other hand, Grím had been wrong before, and going the long way around by Lud’s Town wouldn’t help them at all if they couldn’t afford the higher fares the old capital seemed to attract like flies to honey. “I think Winchester might be our best option,” she said carefully, “I know it’s dangerous, but so is Lud’s Town, and with the longer journey time and the floods we’d be lucky to get there before all the convoys have left, and we haven’t the money to make our way alone.”

“We’ll vote on it,” Godric suggested. “All for Lud’s Town?” Gríma’s hand went up, but it was alone. None of them much fancied an extended march in this weather, with autumn coming on so fast. “Sorry, mate,” Godric said, shrugging. “Vote’s against you.”

Grima nodded, glancing around, his eyes narrowed and all but useless through the haze of his myopia. Rowena didn’t think she’d seen him glance around so much before in her life. It was unsettling, trying to think too hard on that, like tonguing at the gap of a lost tooth. Something missing, but damned if she could tell what.

When they stepped out into the early morning light the rain was coming down lighter than it had been, almost a mist. Rowena put the hood of her cloak up, to remarkably little effect. Beside her, Helga was turning to face the sun, just peeking over the horizon mixing pink in with the grey of the autumn sky.

“There’s our heading,” she said, “North and east. With any luck we should be at the Roman road by midday.”

Rowena nodded, then remembered Gríma couldn’t see her and voiced her assent, still distracted by something she couldn’t quite name, a memory so vague she wasn’t quite sure if it hadn’t been a dream.

They were quiet on the walk out of the village, more due to sleepiness than any real need for stealth, though Gríma they all knew would be tense and wary until long after the last buildings had faded out of sight behind them. It was just as they were coming up to the boundary-stone that marked the edge of the village that Helga caught sight of Ethelbert the healer and muttered something in Welsh which she would never have dared say in front of her aunt Agnes.

“Not leaving already, are you?” the square man asked as they drew level. “It’s not even dawn yet, surely you can’t mean to go hungry.”

“We thought we’d eat on the road,” Helga said, before any of the rest of them could get a word out.

Ethelbert gave the four of them another look-over. “A bit keen, aren’t you? That one,” he gestured to Gríma, whose head was tipped to one side, listening, “Hardly looks as though he’ll last much longer in this weather.”

Godric cut in just as Helga was opening her mouth, this time. “He’s tougher than he looks,” he said, glaring.

“You know, I can hear you,” Gríma pointed out, a definite edge to his voice now, “I’ve got a name, too, if you’d like to use it.” Rowena winced even as Godric muttered an apology, his ears going pink.

“Hmm…” Ethelbert frowned. “Well, I can at least make a recommendation for your route? The northernmost road has the best history of being free of flooding. There’s a rather good inn at the bridge there, the Greyhound.”

“We’ll remember that,” Rowena promised, casting a look at the others. Helga looked bemused, not quite certain of what was going on, but Godric’s face had darkened now. “I think,” she ventured, “We’d all rather be on the road as soon as possible.”

“Yeah,” Helga agreed vehemently, “We’re already behind, and half the convoys will’ve left Winchester at this rate.”

“Not so many as you might think,” Ethelbert replied, “Is this all your party, then?”

Gríma frowned, but Godric spoke up before he could say anything. “Just about,” he admitted, looking around at the rest of them, “There was talk of meeting up with a couple of Helga’s brothers, but none of them could be spared.”

“We’d rather be away quickly,” Gríma cut in, “They might take us anyway if we pay a bit extra for passage, and we’ll have a better chance of catching them on the road if we start early.”

Ethelbert raised his eyebrows, but stepped aside willingly enough. When Rowena looked back just before they turned a corner he was still standing there, watching them.

“So,” Godric remarked as soon as they were out of earshot. “What was that about?”

Gríma frowned. “No idea,” he said, “But he asked a lot of questions for someone who wasn’t interested in what we were doing.” Helga nudged him, looking worried, which Rowena thought was their equivalent to what would be sharing a worried look for anyone else.

Godric frowned. “He seemed all right from what I saw of him,” he said doubtfully. Helga’s expression flickered then, her face going white beneath its freckles and her eyes far away, almost dead.

“Yeah,” she said in an odd sort of voice, “He did. What, did you think that meant anything?”

Rowena dropped back a bit to put an arm around her shoulders, directing a fierce glare at Godric. She’d heard only a little of what had happened when Helga was eleven – neither she nor Gríma would speak of it – but she’d been the one woken in the night by the sound of Helga’s nightmares in the next bed over, who had seen the way her eyes shuttered up whenever a stranger expressed too much interest in her actions.

“We’d best get a move on,” she said, letting Helga go, “I think we can afford an inn tonight, if we’re not fussy about quality.”

“Anything but another ditch,” Godric said fervently.

Helga snorted. “You just don’t want to wake up with spiders in your hair again,” she said, grinning even if it did look a little strained. “You’ve got one just over your left ear, if you haven’t noticed.”

Godric jumped, then swore, his hand going straight to his ear, making Helga snicker, falling against Rowena’s side as she laughed, apparently impervious to Rowena’s disapproving look and Godric’s glower both. Even Gríma seemed to be hiding a smile as he bent to check the fastenings of his pack, running his fingers over the buckles and seams less carefully than had been his wont.

When they set out again it was in an untidy sort of line, with Helga, the most experienced woodsman of their party, at their head and Godric, the only one of them who was actually armed, even if it was only a makeshift cudgel he’d picked up in the village the previous day, taking the rear. The West Country rolled out green and golden beneath their feet, the damp autumn air cold on Rowena’s face, soaking through the hood of her cloak into her curly hair, damping it. Rowena sighed. It would be less manageable than ever when it dried, she knew from bitter experience, and in the meantime she was cold and wet and miserable with the dew soaking through her boots and the rain starting to come down heavier as the sky turned from pink-tinged grey to white overhead.

“At this rate we’ll all start growing gills before we reach the fair,” Godric remarked when Rowena slowed her steps so he could draw level with her. “Grím seems to be halfway there already.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Rowena replied, giving him a look which was only mostly disapproving and looking around for a change of subject. “It’s not as though you won’t be able to find a place as a squire,” she settled on, “You’ve more chance than any of the rest of us.”

“None of the rest of you want to be knights,” Godric said sourly, “You’ve got to have been a page since you were ten to have any hope of squiring, and my parents couldn’t afford to send us all.” His ears went pink at that, and he looked down at his boots with a scowl on his face.

Rowena stared at him. “Godric,” she said in a low, clear voice, “You’re usually quicker on the uptake than this.”

“What?” he asked, looking up from his boots to frown at her.

“None of us have our letters of recommendation,” Rowena pointed out, “If you claimed to have been a page for someone I don’t think anyone would really know,”

Godric blinked at her. “Er…am I hearing right?” he asked, “You’re actually telling me to lie to my apprentice-masters? _You?_ ”

“Well, yes,” Rowena admitted. “Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t suggest it at all, but given that Helga at the very least will have to lie to get what she wants at the fair it would be rather hypocritical of me to criticise you if you did the same.”

“Yeah,” Godric said slowly, “But not criticising and outright suggesting that I lie about being a page aren’t exactly-”

“Do you want to be a knight or not?” Rowena snapped, folding her arms. “For what it’s worth I think you’d be good at it, but if you don’t want-”

“I’m not- Of course I want to! What did you think-”

“Well, if you were just going to use the fact that you hadn’t been a page as an excuse not to try for a squire’s position-”

On balance, she really should have known better. Still, the resulting argument was a more than welcome distraction from her own worries over the loss of their letters of recommendation and by midday they were on speaking terms again, though still carefully avoiding the subject of the fair.

It was a grey, cheerless early autumn day, the monotony only broken by the rain which came in spurts, heavy for half an hour and then gone again apart from the mists, which were so thick by mid-morning that all Helga’s woodcraft couldn’t do much more than keep them from walking into trees. The four of them limped on in sullen silence, occasionally broken by snatches of conversation which petered out all too quickly.

Rain streamed down in rivulets from between the branches of the trees, visible only as dark shapes in the fog, and the few other travellers they passed were thin and ragged, and kept their heads down against the winds as they hurried past. One woman stared at them for a long time before making a clumsy sign of the cross and hurrying away with what seemed to Rowena to be almost insulting speed.

“Nice to feel welcomed, isn’t it?” Godric remarked after a few hours of this, inclining his head in the direction of a man who had outright spat at Godric before hurrying off, muttering about the devil’s sign.

“I suppose that healer was right about the hair,” Rowena said practically, “Father always said it was peasant superstition, I didn’t think-”

“You’d have to deal with the actual peasants?” Gríma finished for her, raising his eyebrows with a slight smile.

Rowena flushed. “No, not exactly. I just didn’t think anyone actually _believed_ it.”

“People believe any number of things that don’t make any sense,” Gríma pointed out, “You can’t have missed it, the way people carried on around the town.”

“Oh, lay off, will you?” Helga said, elbowing him, “It’s getting in the way whatever it is- Look, give Godric your cap and let’s get on.”

“What- Oh, right.”

With the cap on and his hair hidden under it Godric looked almost bald, but the next party of travellers they passed didn’t so much as spare them a second glance as they pressed on, aching and weary and all of their tempers now quite decidedly frayed. It was difficult to talk now, as they joined the Roman road not long later, and so were pressed in on all sides by travellers flocking to the capital. It was more people than Rowena had seen in one place since the day of her faked execution, jostling and squabbling and hemmed in so tightly that it was difficult to keep track of one another in the throng. Farmers driving their flocks to market, peasant youths seeking employment in the city, old men and women hobbling along on sticks and, here and there, armoured knights on horseback or on foot whom Godric watched with undisguised hunger in his face. By unconscious agreement, they drew closer together as they shoved their way through the crowds of fellow-travellers. Gríma seemed to be having a particularly hard time of it today – but then, so much noise, so much commotion, it was no wonder his footsteps were less sure, his head turning this way and that in a futile attempt to hear them in the general cacophony. He almost walked straight into one old woman selling baked turnips before Helga caught his arm, something Rowena had almost never seen him do before. They left the main road as quickly as they could; breaking off on the northernmost branch of the crossroads they came to and watching the traffic slow to a trickle. Helga had grumbled, but even she had seen the sense of it in the end: the main gates of Winchester would be the most heavily guarded and the most heavily patrolled. Coming in from the north they would at least avoid the worst of it.

Still as the day wore on and the weather grew worse, the wind picking up and the rain coming down heavier and heavier as evening approached, all of their tempers began to wear thin. This was only to be expected from Godric, who was used to far more comfortable conditions than these at his father’s manor, and for Helga, more accustomed to inconvenience but also more of a hothead than her cousin. Still, Rowena would be forced to admit later, looking back on that afternoon, none of them were exactly covering themselves in glory that afternoon, all four of them snapping at each other like dogs squabbling over a scrap of meat. It came as a great relief, then, to Rowena to see the sign of the Greyhound ahead of them, though the paint was peeling off the faded inn-sign and the place looked ill-kept and shabby.

“Not exactly a welcoming sight, is it?” Godric remarked as they paused to let Helga, whose pack was heaviest, catch up with them.

“Yes,” Gríma agreed, still sounding distinctly irritable, “I’ve never seen anywhere look so completely unwelcoming.”

Godric’s ears went pink at that, and he glared at Gríma, entirely pointlessly, as it turned out, as Gríma had already set off again. Rowena managed, with effort, to restrain herself from rolling her eyes at the pair of them.

“Do you want to stay there all evening, or can we go on?” Helga said from behind them, having just drawn level, and Godric scowled, snapping back an affirmative with so much bite to it even Rowena was startled. They trudged on, keeping their heads down against the wind and rain that had soaked through Godric’s new cloak already, making the cheap dye run and stain his skin in patches wherever it showed from under his shirt and tunic. It had stained the back of his neck where Rowena could see it, the green contrasting violently with his flaming hair. She smiled at that, though she couldn’t quite think why it was that the sight had so affected her, and ducked her head as the rain grew heavier.

*

Inside, the inn under the sign of the Greyhound was even smaller and shabbier than its exterior had made it seem, although, as the thin, shrivelled landlady had told them with asperity the moment she laid eyes on Rowena, it was a respectable house and not one for the likes of them. It had taken three of the strange silver coins from their shared pouch to persuade her to let them stay, a loss they could hardly afford but which none of them felt fit to deny at this point. The roads were dangerous after dark, moreso even than in daylight. Not that this crowded inn with its hard-faced, watchful patrons felt any better. They’d had another argument just outside about whether they should stop here at all, but Gríma’s paranoia hadn’t been enough to sway three hungry, tired teenagers and so in they had gone. Rowena wondered now whether they might have slept better in a barn.

Huddled around a corner table, the four of them were tucked just out of sight ofthe main door. Gríma emptied their remaining coins out onto the table and they all stared at them in various states of gloom.

“We’re never going to make it to Winchester at this rate,” Godric said, not that it really needed saying at this point.

“Not with many more nights in inns, anyway,” Rowena put in archly, glancing around the table.

Helga snorted. “That prune of a landlady was cheating us,” she said, “Any fool could see that. You might’ve at least tried to haggle for a lower price.”

“Why didn’t one of you, then, if it was that obvious?” Godric snapped.

“And been turned away outright?” Gríma asked, his tone uncharacteristically bitter. “No-one out here is going to let an accursed frog-eater – or a heretic like your cousin – a room for the night no matter how much they pay for the privilege. Or,” he added sourly, staring into his ale, “How miserable a yel-hus they end up in.”

Helga nodded. “I never had your talent for voice-changing,” she admitted, though it clearly pained her to do it. “I’ll have to learn – I suppose I could always claim to be mute?”

“Please don’t,” Gríma said testily, rubbing at the scabbed-over cuts on the back of his hand.

“I’m hardly going to make a convincing boy if I use my own voice!”

“Never mind that now,” Rowena cut in, “More immediately – you said yesterday we could sell game?”

“We could,” Helga agreed, “If we cut through more villages instead of going around them. Even then, we probably wouldn’t make much. Herbs would be riskier still.”

“But we’d make more, right?” Godric asked.

Rowena shook her head, “I’d rather be sure of our lives,” she said. “Is there any safer way of paying our passage?”

“Living off the land entirely is the only way I can see,” Helga said, “Grím, would you-?”

Gríma frowned. “It’s possible,” he admitted. “I think we can manage it.”

“Though with our luck we’d probably end up being savaged by man-eating rabbits or something the day before we got there,” Helga put in with a mock grimace, making Gríma choke with laughter.

Godric nodded, leaning his chin on his hand. “How far is it, then?”

“Four hundred and twenty miles,” Rowena said, taking a careful sip of ale and then wishing she hadn’t. It tasted fouler even than was usual for such taverns. “That’s a fortnight, if all goes well.”

“And when does anything ever go well for us?” Gríma asked with a grim smile. He too took a gulp of ale then, and went an interesting greenish colour at the taste of it and went into a fit of hacking coughs, forcing Godric to pound on his back until he stopped gasping.

“Yeah,” Godric said, once Gríma had got his breath back. “You’ve got a point there. But we can’t exactly go back now.”

“I think we all know that,” Rowena replied, smiling wanly and stifling a yawn, feeling suddenly unimaginably heavy with exhaustion, every inch of her aching, shoulders and back and legs and feet all burning with weariness she hadn’t felt until she had sat down. “Can we afford supper, do you know? I’m starving.”

“No, we can’t,” Helga said shortly, staring gloomily at their coins.

Godric shook his head. “I don’t care what it costs, so long as we can eat. None of us have had anything since yesterday, and we’re not going to get to Scotland at all if we starve ourselves to death along the way.”

Gríma reached over to sweep the coins back into the purse, and got to his feet, “I’ll go and order, then,” he said, making a valiant attempt to conceal his flat Fen vowels and failing miserably. Next to Rowena, Godric gave an odd little shake of the head, as though trying to jog something loose in there. It didn’t seem to work, going by the slightly dazed, confused look that lingered on his face for a moment or two after, but then, none of them were at their best right now.

“What do you think the odds are of the food here living up to the ale?” Helga asked in a low voice, a smile tugging at her mouth. “It tastes uncannily like goat piss.”

Godric’s expression barely hid his amusement – he looked more like his usual self than he had all day, “I’m quite sure I don’t want to know how you know that,” he said, “Not much to drink in Wales, was there.”

Helga was cut off mid-reply by Gríma’s return, which was probably a good idea because while Rowena didn’t recognise or understand half the words she was using there was really no mistaking that tone.

“Any trouble?” Godric asked, as Gríma settled beside them, balancing a battered wooden tray with four trenchers with what Rowena was fairly sure was some sort of savoury stew soaking through them.

“It was fine.”

They set to with a will, too hungry for politeness, though the bread was gritty with the sand that had been used to make up the weight of the flour and the stew itself tough and tasteless. They were too hungry to care for that, either. It had been a hard day, and felt harder than it had been due to their brief inactivity in the village. No matter how revolting the stew might have been, no matter how tough and leathery the meat, there wasn’t a scrap of it left by the time it was over, nor a morsel of the trenchers themselves.

“Where are we sleeping here, do you know?” Rowena asked once they’d all finished. “Private rooms, dormitories…”

Helga gestured over towards the great fireplace. “By the sound of it they’ll give us blankets and we can sleep by the fire,” she said, and grinned at the look on Rowena’s face. “It’s not so bad once you’re used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it,” Godric grumbled, but it was half-hearted at best. None of them had the energy for much more just then. “I-”

There was a thundering of hooves outside, and a sound very like a large, mailed fist pounding on the door. All four of them froze, the whole room going still and silent for a few long moments as the withered landlady hurried over to the door. The three men who entered then were armed and armoured, wearing surcoats in the rich, deep blue of the King’s household, the dragon crest of the Pendragon line picked out in gold. They looked like knights stepped straight out of a song, but their eyes were hard as they scanned the main room of the inn, not seeming to notice the four witches tucked away in a quiet alcove.

“Do you think-” Gríma hissed, his ears pricked, “Soldiers?”

“Knights,” Rowena breathed back. “Is there another way out of here?”

Helga nodded back into the shadows of the room, “There’s a door there. I don’t know where it leads, though.”

“Let’s not draw attention to ourselves just yet,” Godric said in a low voice. “What are they-”

But the question proved superfluous as the taller of the two knights spoke up in a clear, carrying voice. “Mistress, we have heard reports of witchcraft in this house.”

The landlady blanched. “Whatever you may’ve heard,” she said in her harsh voice, drawing herself up to her full height in a fine pretence at defiance, “We keep a god-fearing house here.”

The shorter knight smiled, and it was frightening how genuinely kind he made it look, with his regular features and wide, innocent grey eyes. “We’ve no fear on that, good mother,” he said, “Nonetheless, we’ve had reports from a loyal subject that a party of four witches along this road planned to stay a night at the sign of the Greyhound and so, with your permission, we will search this house to bring them before His Grace at Winchester.”

Godric swore under his breath next to Rowena, his voice shaking. Rowena, meanwhile, caught Helga’s eye and jerked her head towards the door. Slowly, casually, as though merely looking for the privies, Helga rose to her feet, nudging Gríma to follow her and slipping over towards the door.

“Oh-” the landlady said, “In which case, you would be quite welcome to partake of all this inn has to offer, of course. These…these witches,” and Rowena could hear the loathing in her voice, so sharp it hurt to hear it, “Can you describe them?”

“According to Master Ethelbert they were two male and two female, none over twenty. Two red-haired, boy and girl, a blind fen-land peasant and a nobleman’s daughter in a grey cloak.”

Godric was the next to go, though he didn’t want to be, and Rowena’s heart was in her throat from the moment he left the table as she rose to follow him. She was nearly at the door when the shriek came up from behind her.

“I’ve seen them! That frog-eater bastard bought four trenchers of my best stew with his strange coins – enchanted, no doubt! Oh, that it should have come to this! It’ll have turned to leaves by morning, I know it!”

“Where are they now?”

Rowena just managed to get the door bolted behind her in time for the knights to see their empty table, their packs still lying abandoned, as to take them would have only aroused further suspicion, but no sign of them.

“Where now?” she hissed, looking at the others.

“Kitchens,” Godric said, “It’ll be the fastest way out. Come on, I think it’s down this way.”

Behind them, as they hurried off, came the distinct sound of hammering on the door and muffled voices, making Godric swear and quicken his steps. Rowena could hear her heart pounding, echoed back at her as though from all sides, as though the world itself ran to its beat. Behind them, the sounds grew louder – the door was sturdy, but it wouldn’t hold for long – and as they ducked into the cavernous kitchen of the inn, which was empty but for a ragged-looking man of indeterminate age who lay insensate in a corner, a bottle having fallen from his hand to rest on the scrubbed stone floor.

She was the last in, and the first sight to meet her eyes was Helga, who had snatched up a light leather sack and was emptying trenchers into it as fast as she could before swinging it onto her shoulder.

“Provisions,” she explained, “We’ll need them.”

“But shouldn’t we-”

“Pay?” Helga asked, raising an eyebrow, “That landlady’s already sold us out, and she’s got all our packs to sell. I think she can afford it.”

“Hurry up!” Gríma called, as another deafening thud from the door down the corridor shook the room. They ran, dodging out into the rain. More soldiers, more men, and they scattered as they crossed the low fields making for the treeline.

“Hold, in the name of the King!” came a voice from behind them, but they ran on, disappearing into the woods one after the other until the inn was out of sight behind them.

Rowena leant heavily on a tree as soon as she drew to a halt, her mind whirling, the events of the last few minutes twisting around and around inside her head. Now that the first flush of adrenaline was used up her exhaustion was starting to reassert itself, every inch of her aching, her eyelids so heavy she could scarce keep them up. A noise close by in the dark, Rowena startled.

“Godric?” she called, “Is that-”

Heavy footfalls, the shine of moonlight on steel and she drew in a breath as the knight emerged from the undergrowth, fumbling in her skirts for her wand as he closed, sword raised, and screaming out the first spell that came into her head.

“Reducto!”

The man went flying, there was a loud _crack_ , and he lay still at the base of a great tree, splintered now by her spell as though struck by lightning, his neck bent at an impossible angle. Dead, or near enough as made no difference. Strange, but she had never felt so sick before.

“Rowena?” Helga’s voice, and Rowena looked up.

“Where are the others?”

“Here.” And that was Gríma, breathing heavily and with a fresh cut on his cheek, but alive, with Godric beside him, every bit as rumpled.

“Well, thank the gods that you’re all right at least,” Rowena said, feeling as though her knees were about to give out under her just from the relief of seeing them, alive and well. Godric grinned crookedly, and looked as though he were about to speak.

From behind them, suddenly, closer than they had imagined, they could hear a man’s voice roaring “Stop them! Cut them off!”

They looked at each other for one frozen moment, like the catch between one crack of lightning and the next, and then they were off again, running pell-mell through the shadowed forest, and the night behind them was filled with the crescendoing sound of pursuit.


	3. Part 1, Chapter 2

It was two days from Winchester to Lud’s Town, but those two days had never seemed longer than on that first desperate night, with the sound of hoof-beats on every side, the woods seeming then darker and wilder and more full of dangers than ever before. They ran all through that night, not daring to stop in case they were found – by wolves or King’s men, there was little enough difference between the two for them – and sleeping through the next day in a ditch, taking turns at the watch and not daring a fire in case it caught the attention of their pursuers. Rowena lay wrapped in Godric’s green cloak, which he’d insisted on trading for her thin grey one when they made camp. She still wasn’t sure whether that was chivalry or just Godric not wanting to have to wander around in a cloak that leaked dye every time he took a step. Not that it really mattered by this point, as the day’s rain had very nearly washed all the colour out of it, leaving it a sort of pale, sickly grey-green and soaked right through to boot. She didn’t know if any of the others had been able to get any sleep, but for herself her sleep had been troubled as she jolted awake at every sound, lying in the dappled light beneath the trees and yet wound up tenser than a lute-string brought to snapping point.

The memory of the man, the knight, lying there at the foot of the tree would not leave her mind. If anything she had embellished it, adding details she hadn’t thought to notice at the time. She didn’t know if they were truth or cruel invention, some of the things she remembered. The unnatural angle of his neck, the livid burn on his wrist and the few damp curls of brassy-fair hair poking out from beneath a helmet which she knew without looking was all that held his skull together. Her gorge rose again, and she tasted vomit, swallowed it back down. The last thing she needed now was for one of the others to see her in this sort of state.

Good gods, she’d killed a man. She hadn’t meant to, she’d been so desperate and afraid and panicked that she’d just blurted out the first thing that came into her head. But now a man was dead because of it. That made her a murderer. Even thinking the word felt wrong, somehow, knowing it applied to her. Resigning herself to sleeplessness, she got to her feet, shaking slightly and so exhausted it cost her effort with every step to cross over to the birch tree and lean against it, gasping for breath. _Thief, liar, murderer,_ her mind whispered, over and over again, every sin she had been party to in the last few days rising up again before her in silent indictment.

“Rowena?”

She turned, and there was Godric, rumpled and puffy-eyed and with leaves in his hair. He looked every bit as exhausted as she felt, patches of green still standing out against his fair, freckled skin.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said uselessly, hunching her shoulders and turning away again, hating the way her voice shook. “Shouldn’t you be keeping watch?”

She could feel his hand, a whisper away from the small of her back as though he didn’t quite dare touch her properly. “You all right?” he asked, voice rough. “I saw what happened with that man- the soldier-”

“What _happened?_ ” Rowena repeated, incredulous. “I killed him, Godric. Doesn’t that merit a bit more than-”

“Rowena.” Godric’s hand settled on her shoulder now, so warm it was startling even through her cloak and gown. “You killed him. I know. I saw. He was going to kill you if you didn’t, so I’d hardly count him as much of a loss.”

“How can you be so casual about this?” she asked, voice cracking. “A man is dead because of me. I’m- I’m a murderer, I’ve-” She doubled over, heaving into the bushes as the memory came back, the sick snap of the man’s neck echoing in her ears. When she came back to herself, she was kneeling, and Godric’s hands were in her hair, holding it back from her face and there was a foul taste in her mouth.

“It’s fine,” Godric was saying. “You’re all right, we’re through, we’re fine…”

“But I-”

“Did what any of us would do in your place,” A pause. “Well, maybe not Grím, but you know he can be an idiot like that. Would you be saying all this about me if I’d been the one who did it?”

“No, but-”

“What, you expect less of me or something?” Godric snapped, and then with a palpable effort of will gentled his voice, his hand moving to her shoulder. “Look. Would you rather he’d caught up with us and we’d all been hanged or burnt for witchcraft?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean-” she broke off, not quite sure how to articulate it. Before this, she’d been – she’d felt – _clean_ somehow, despite the grime and sweat of the road. And now she wasn’t, and she hadn’t even known that she was until suddenly she wasn’t. And she wouldn’t get that back, not in a thousand years. “I didn’t even know who he was, and I killed him.”

“He wouldn’t be acting like this, if he’d killed you,” Godric said.

Rowena smiled, but there was no joy in it. “Wouldn’t he?”

“No,” Godric said firmly, “He wouldn’t. You’re so _naïve_ sometimes, R’ena. We’re demons to them, remember? Do you think anyone would bother to think whether demons deserve killing?”

“They’re not all like that,” Rowena said, brushing his hand away, “They’re good men, some of them, they just-”

“They’d have killed you, if you let them,” Godric said darkly. “What do you call that, then, if they’re still good men?”

Rowena shrugged. “They’re scared,” she said simply, “They don’t know- The priests tell them that we’re demonic, that we make pacts with the devil and that’s where magic comes from. If they only knew-”

“You thought that?” Godric asked, sounding puzzled.

Rowena nodded, avoiding his eyes. “When I was little, before I started using magic. After that I thought I was cursed.”

“Ren ow thas!” Godric muttered, voice rough. “Really?”

“Yes.” Rowena gathered her cloak closer about herself, “You couldn’t understand…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Godric demanded, looking distinctly irate now.

“Not- You didn’t grow up that way, how could you know? It’s…” she shook her head, her hands twisting in the folds of her cloak, not knowing to speak about it. “It’s like having one arm tied behind your back,” she settled on at last. “Having magic and being unable to use it, or even talk about using it. Not even being able to admit it to yourself.”

Godric stared at her, white beneath his freckles. “Is it really that bad?” he asked hoarsely.

“Worse,” Rowena replied. “Let’s- It’s nearly sunset, we should wake the others-”

“We’ve got a bit of time,” Godric said, reaching out to touch her but stopping short before his fingers brushed the rough wool of her cloak. “Are you sure? You look in a right state.”

“I’ll be fine,” Rowena said shortly. “Wake your cousin.” She stayed there, leaning against the birch tree as the sounds of the others waking up came from behind her, choking back tears, her hands twisting together beneath her cloak in a gesture which had nothing to do with the chill in the air, stopping only to draw her wand and vanish the puddle of vomit congealing nearby. Behind her, she could hear the others grumbling as they were awoken, Welsh lilt and coarse Fen vowels blending together at the edge of Rowena’s hearing. She smiled weakly, and straightened up, trying to compose herself before she turned to face them.

“We should be out of range of the patrols before first light,” she said, once her hands had stopped shaking. “If we keep going north and east from here. They must still think we’re making for Winchester.”

“Oh, come on,” Godric said, catching her eye, “They’d have to be really thick-”

“Helga told Ethelbert we were meeting someone in Winchester,” Rowena explained, “And given that healer’s the only one who could have told the guard those details-”

“They’ll want to catch the whole party,” Helga cut in, giving Rowena a grateful look. “It’ll make for a better show when they burn us.”

“Yeah,” Gríma agreed fervently, “You’ve got to hand it to King Constant,” he went on, rummaging in the ditch for Helga’s leather sack. “Most rulers, they’d be content with the rack or the rope, but Constant, he’s a man of the world. Nothing but a proper bonfire for him.”

Godric and Helga laughed, but Rowena didn’t. Her hands had started shaking again.

“So, north?” Godric asked, frowning. “I don’t know how you tell directions at night. Use the moon instead of the sun, you reckon?”

“I _think_ so,” Rowena replied carefully, “I’ve never used the stars for navigating before. Helga, have you-”

But Helga was already shaking her head, “I know the north star when I see it,” she said, “But that’s about it.”

“That should be enough,” Godric replied. “Or it would be if it were bloody _dark_.”

Gríma turned slowly, almost in a circle, blinking a little. “The light’s coming from that way now,” he said, pointing, “And if it’s as late as you say that should be due west. So north is…” he tipped his head on one side. “Probably that way. We can work the rest of it out when it’s actually dark.”

“All right,” Rowena said, “You are sure about that, aren’t you?”

Helga made a quelling gesture, “No, it makes sense. And it’s only the same method we’ve been using all journey.”

“Yeah,” Godric said, “Only the rest of us could see to do it.”

Gríma snorted. “Real tribute to our navigation skills, that is,” he remarked, tucking his hands under his arms to warm them. “It’ll be a wonder if we make it to Lud’s Town at all, at this rate.”

“That’s reassuring,” Godric muttered. “We got everything?”

“Such as it is,” Helga replied, taking the sack from Gríma and checking it over. “Do you still have the money, Grím?”

“Yeah, look-” but then he stopped short, the coin-pouch in his hands, as they all noticed the long rent in the leather, and the matching tear in Gríma’s tunic where Rowena knew at a glance that an arrow had just barely grazed the flesh.

“How much left?” Godric asked darkly, casting a resentful look at the pouch in Gríma’s hands.

“Ten of those funny silver coins, and six more of the little bronze ones,” Rowena said, taking stock quickly.

“Seven,” Helga corrected quickly, “There’s another tucked beneath that silver.”

Godric swore, loudly and at some length, making all three of them jump and Helga cross the clearing to clap a hand over his mouth.

“Are you _insane?_ ” she demanded, “You know what’ll happen if the King’s men catch up to us!” Godric gave a muffled protest from behind Helga’s hand, trying unsuccessfully to bat it away, but she clung on until he had subsided. “So,” she said as soon as he had done so, wiping her hand on her tunic, “I reckon I know enough about herbs to make a bit on the side that way, and if we have time for it we can snare game as we go.”

“It’ll be tight,” Gríma said warningly, emptying the coins into Helga’s sack and tucking the ruined coin-pouch into his belt.

Helga raised her eyebrows at him. “So? It’s this or starving, isn’t it?”

The two of them shared a grin, and Rowena had to hide a smile at how _obvious_ they were, how obvious they had been all summer. Gods alone knew when they’d figure it out, of course. Godric, she noticed, was starting to look distinctly uncomfortable, and she cut in quickly.

“It’s the only plan we really have just now, at any rate,” she said, “Unless anyone’s got a better idea.” She looked around at the other three; they made a motley company, they four. Indeed, looking at them together was like seeing four wood-cut illustrations, each from a wildly different book. Something came over her then like a chill in the air, and she shuddered without knowing why.

They set off again in the golden light of late afternoon, weaving between the trees as best they could and tramping through bracken and briars and creeping undergrowth on all sides. The soft noises of the wood were all around now, growing louder as the sun sank towards a horizon none of them could see through the green and golden forest that ringed them in so closely that the outside world seemed an illusion by contrast. They broke out onto open ground just at dusk, which came as some relief to all four of them. Rowena had spent one night stumbling through darkness in the forests, terrified out of her mind of what might be lurking around the next corner. She didn’t think she could bear another such night on the heels of the last.

“You’re quiet,” Helga said as they wound their way down into the fields, her red hair covered over with a battered sheepskin cap, the flaps hanging down over her ears. A few stray locks of it could still be seen peeking out over her ear.

Rowena smiled at her. “You never told me,” she said, “Are you going to pretend to be a boy all through your apprentice years?”

“As long as I can manage,” Helga replied, loping along at her side. “You don’t get half so much trouble that way. Haven’t you noticed? People look at me differently, got up like this.”

All that Rowena had noticed was that they looked at her less, but she nodded her agreement all the same.

“But for however many years it’ll take to become a master…”

Helga gave her a sidelong look, “I never said that,” she said, “Just until I’m a journeyman, then I’ll let it go. Call myself a widow or something so no-one complains about my travelling alone.”

“I’m not sure how long that’s going to work,” Rowena started, but Helga shrugged.

“Not as though I’ve got many other options just now, is it?”

“No, I suppose not,” Rowena agreed cautiously. “Why blacksmithing, though? You’re good at herbs and charm-work, why not look for-”

“Why do you want to study Transfiguration when you’re so good at everything else?” Helga asked, “I don’t know, I just fancy blacksmithing. I never thought I’d make my living the way Mam did, and there’s not many other options for herbalists out there.”

“I didn’t mean- Look, I’m just curious. I mean, you’ve never really talked about what you want to do with your life before.”

Helga grinned at her. “Neither have you,” she pointed out, “Or Grím. Gods, is it possible that my cousin Rickon’s the only one of us with any idea what he’s doing next?” Rowena’s horror must have shown on her face, going by the explosive burst of laughter from Helga that followed.

“He’s not stupid, you know,” she said defensively. “And he’ll make a good knight, if he can find anyone willing to take him on as a squire.”

Helga grinned into her mustard-coloured neckerchief, and Rowena looked away, feeling the blush rising from her neck.

“Anyway,” she went on, “What are you going to do with smithing? I thought you wanted to travel.”

Helga snorted, “I’m going to have to pay my passage to be able to do that, though, and blacksmithing is one trade I can be sure of wherever I go.”

Rowena frowned. “I hadn’t thought-”

“Of course not. You’re nobility; you’ve barely had to worry about money a day in your life.” Helga’s voice was hard, and she seemed to realise this, because she smiled as though to dull the sting, but lapsed into uneasy silence all the same. The harvest moon was rising in the east, hanging fat and yellow in the violet sky and Rowena could see a cluster of little lights in the distance across the fields, the shadows of workmen in a long line trooping back towards them. For a moment, she could not help but think of Fox Hollow, and Artus’ manor there. It had been one of their principal amusements, on days they could get away from their chores and their studies, to run away to the moors and stay there until dark. In the evenings, wending back down the well-worn path through the heather with the moon overhead, it had felt like this: exciting and full of potential, every breath of cool air rich with the scents of peat and moss and wood-smoke from the village below. Sometimes they’d be joined by Godric’s brothers or one or other of Helga’s, staying with their aunt and uncle on their way to or from the Welsh valleys they called home.

“Look,” Helga said abruptly, “Up ahead!”

Rowena craned her neck, hearing Godric swear behind her. Moonlight glinting off armour, off bridles, off swords. There was no time to run, and nowhere left to flee to, and for a moment she stood there frozen, the image of the soldier with the broken neck hovering before her eyes as they rode closer.

“Stop!” came a bellow from up ahead, “Who are you?”

“Apprentices!” Helga called back, slouching slightly and drawing her cloak closer about herself. Something about her voice sounded off to Rowena’s ears, and she frowned, drawing her hood up to hide her face. “Bound for Lud’s Town!” It was pitched deeper, that was it, Rowena realised, Helga’s familiar lilting vowels dulled down as far as possible.

“Three of you?” the first of the knights asked, leaning down from his horse to look at them through clear grey eyes. “And a woman?”

“Our master’s bride-to-be!” Helga snapped back. “We’re meant to escort her back to Lud’s Town for the wedding.”

Rowena cast her a startled look, but did her best to draw herself up and look appropriately respectable as the knight urged his horse forward to look at her.

“A bit young, aren’t you?” he said coolly, “I thought the lower orders married later. How old are you?”

“Eighteen, sir,” Rowena lied in her best imitation of Godric’s West Country brogue, trying to remember how to curtsey.

“Ah. Not so young as all that, then. My apologies, madam.” He raised one hand to his helmet in salute, his eyes glittering with amusement. For a moment, Rowena saw the dead eyes of the man she had killed reflected back at her and had to fight not to flinch away from him as he looked her over. “And these others? Who are they?”

“More apprentices,” Helga cut in, “Ethelred and Wulfric. I wouldn’t ask them too many questions – Ethelred’s mute and Wulfric’s simple, but they can fetch and carry well enough.”

Rowena didn’t dare look around to see the expressions on the boys’ faces, but she could almost feel the outrage pouring off Godric behind her.

“Hmm…no papers, I take it?”

“No, sir.” Helga, Rowena thought not for the first time, was truly the glibbest liar it had ever been her good fortune to know. “We didn’t think we’d need them, sir. Never have before.”

“This master of yours, what is his name, and what does he deal in?”

For a moment, Rowena thought she saw a flicker of unease on Helga’s face, but she controlled it quickly. “Wool,” she said in a hurry. “He’s a wool-merchant. Arvel’s his name.” “Arvel,” the knight repeated. “A Welsh name. He’s a Welshman, then, this Arvel?”

“Yes, sir. That’s why-”

“Why he took you on. Yes, yes.” He nodded again, once, and gave the rest of them a quick look-over. His eyes lingered on Rowena, though she couldn’t think why. “Strange, for him to leave such a pearl in the hands of three apprentices, and only one with his wits intact.”

“There was no-one else to send,” Rowena replied in a shaking voice, hoping Godric wouldn’t explode until they were out of earshot – the explosion itself, she knew, was inevitable – “And I’m not really-”

“Nonsense,” the knight said, smiling and reaching down to take her hand, bowing over it from his horse. His lips were startlingly warm against her skin and Rowena could feel her face heat up even as there came an odd grunt from Godric, almost as though he had been about to say something and had someone tread very hard on his foot to silence him. She pulled her hand away, muttering something polite and socially acceptable and hoping this wouldn’t take much longer.

“Well then,” the knight said, inclining his head to her. Rowena smiled at him, doing her best to seem like a naïve country girl quite overawed by the older man in ways that had nothing to do with the choking terror of the stake. It seemed to work well enough – at least, he smiled back – and she swallowed back the words on the tip of her tongue, looking down at her boots and hoping it came over as maidenly shyness rather than mortal terror. The man’s eyes seemed to soften when they fell on her, lingering uncomfortably at the flash of skin between the opening of her cloak and her gown, and he nodded, going slightly pink. “You can go on, madam. Good fortune attend your marriage.”

“Thank you,” Rowena said stiffly, and with one last nod to Helga and a vaguely contemptuous look at Godric and Gríma, the knight returned to his comrades and let them pass, their heads down against the light. Rowena looked back, but they were already riding on, the moonlight glimmering on their harness. Sure enough, as soon as they were out of earshot Godric burst out with:

“What’d you mean, ‘simple’?”

Rowena sighed as Helga’s eyes flashed fire. “Would you rather we got picked up for witchcraft? They’re looking for a fen-lander.”

“Yeah, that bit of it made sense,” Godric admitted grudgingly, “But why drag me into it? All they have on us two is the hair.”

“We should probably do something about that,” Rowena interrupted, “What with all these extra patrols and the way the Muggles keep reacting to it…I don’t suppose we could just shave it all off, could we?”

The horrified looks on both Godric and Helga’s (and, more strangely, Gríma’s) faces would have made her laugh, had the situation been any less serious.

“Look,” she said irritably, “It’s hardly the worst thing any of us has ever had to do to keep our necks out of the noose…” The horrified looks did not abate. “It’s your decision,” she settled on at last, “But if we end up getting captured and killed because you didn’t want to get your ears cold…”

“What, and wandering around the countryside like a pair of boiled eggs is going to be any less conspicuous?” Godric demanded. “Forget it.”

“I’m not saying it won’t be uncomfortable, but at least you won’t get shoved off the road for bearing the Devil’s mark!” Rowena snapped back. “Or haven’t you noticed that the only person who’s even tried to help us since we got beyond a day’s journey from Fox Hollow sold us out to the King’s men the moment we were gone?”

“It was before that,” Gríma said harshly, “He was trying to keep us there, in the village. He must already have been planning to hand us over.”

Godric swore. So did Helga, Rowena presumed. She didn’t know enough Welsh to be entirely sure, but no-one who’d been friends with Godric could mistake swearing when they heard it.

“We’d told him we were wizards,” Helga said, but her voice was shaking. “It wasn’t just-”

“I know. But,” Rowena raised both hands, “He seems to have only given our most distinctive characteristics. It’s a basic principle of disguise, that if you change only the most noticeable aspect of your appearance you can go unrecognised. And, well…I suppose we’ve just seen how well that works in practice.” She isn’t sure where she learnt this, except that it was probably a book, though she cannot for the life of her remember what its title had been.

“Right. And this means getting laughed at by everyone between here and Lud’s Town because...?”

“Because, Godric, if we don’t do a bit more to hide we could all find ourselves tied to a stake in Winchester! If you want to get yourself killed, be my guest; just don’t take the rest of us along with you!” Rowena was breathing hard by the end of this speech, her hands shaking more than ever. “We’re running an incredible risk just being here,” she said at last, “Let’s not make things any worse for ourselves.”

“That’d be difficult,” Gríma said, shivering a little in the chill of the night air, his eyes reflecting the moonlight.

Godric scowled, then turned back to his cousin. “And you still haven’t said why you told them I was simple!”

“Nor will I!” Helga snapped back, “Honestly, you’re such a child sometimes!”

“I’m a year older than you are-”

“And I really wish you’d act it!” Helga spat. “Rowena had to put up with that knight trying to look down her bodice the whole time, and _she_ ’s not making this sort of a fuss!”

Godric went a very interesting shade of red at that, and Rowena felt obliged to step in.

“I don’t think it was about me specifically,” she said quickly, which did not improve Godric’s colour in the least. “He was blushing the whole time – I don’t think he’d seen a woman in weeks. It wasn’t _personal_.” Granted, that hadn’t made it any less uncomfortable. She shifted, drawing her cloak across herself and trying to adjust the neck of her dress so that it sat higher, a futile endeavour; it was too big for her and kept slipping down whatever she did.

For a moment Godric looked ashamed, and muttered a distinctly sheepish-sounding apology, staring down at his boots. About halfway through he seemed to change his mind, though, and fixed his eyes quite firmly on Rowena’s, his ears going pink. Nearby, Helga snorted, and when Rowena looked around she was whispering something to Gríma, which he seemed to find immensely entertaining by the soft snicker he gave as she drew away.

“Want to share the joke with the rest of us?” Godric said sourly, to be met by two identically innocent expressions from his cousin and foster-brother, neither one terribly convincing.

They met no more patrols that night, keeping off the roads as best they could, tramping through fields and woods and streams north-west until the first pink fingers of dawn could be seen creeping over the horizon. There were no woods in which to hide themselves now, no deep ditches out of sight of the road, and so they continued on, though every step felt heavier than the one before and Rowena’s head spun with weariness. They slept at last that day in the hedgerows, half-hidden beneath the bushes with the sky turning white overhead, and set off again in the gathering dusk, the sack over Helga’s shoulder now distinctly heavier than it had been.

They were not far from Lud’s Town now, the old Roman capital of England. The old stone buildings were almost gone now, except the walls, and even they were no longer enough to contain the city, wattle-and-daub houses pressing up close against the city walls on both sides and spreading out even beyond them. Rowena had visited the city only once, on her way south from Scotland four years prior, but she still remembered the squalor of the outskirts and how it had contrasted with the fine tall timber buildings further in. As they grew closer the smell of the city could be discerned through the evening twilight, rich and organic and noisome in a way that Rowena’s memories had, perhaps, glossed over since her last visit to the capital.

“Nice place,” Godric remarked, looking down at the sprawl from the crest of the hill. “Cosy. Definitely somewhere I’d like to live someday, just me and the rats.”

Gríma made a low, irritable sound in his throat and trudged on without acknowledging Godric’s words, his shoulders hunched defensively.

“What was all that about?” Godric asked Rowena, baffled, and she sighed, wondering if she were the only one of their party with half an ounce of common sense. Godric, being every bit as wound-up and grumpy as the rest of them after three nights on the road, took offence at that and the ensuing quarrel took them almost all the way to the city gates, which were closed, locked and barred against outsiders.

“What do we do now?” Gríma asked breathlessly. “Knock? Or won’t they-”

“We’ll just have to find out,” Helga replied, and reached up to hammer on the great gates until a flap opened above their heads and a man’s face poked itself out.

“What do you want and where do you come from?” he asked gruffly, covering a yawn with one massive hand.

“We’re apprentices!” Helga yelled back, “Coming from the West Country with our master’s new wife!”

“From Lud’s Town?”

“Apprenticed in the city!” Helga called back, “And hoping to get back into it before daybreak!”

“All right, all right,” the man snapped, and called something indistinct down to someone on the other side of the door. His face disappeared from the peep-hole and a small door within the gate swung open to admit the four of them, dripping rain from their sodden cloaks and more than a little ill-tempered. “I meant no offence, but you know it’s my job to ask questions after nightfall.” He peered at them through the yellow light of his lantern as a scruffy boy closed the door behind them. “Well, I suppose you can go on. Take care, now, there’s ruffians about, and not long left until curfew.”

“Cur-” Godric started, but cut himself off with a hiss as Gríma stamped down hard on his foot.

“We’ll remember that,” he interrupted, “We’ve- Um, we lost track of time in the road, could you tell us how long-?”

“What- Oh, an hour or so.” A bell tolled far off, and the man waved them on. “Go on, now, to your beds before the city guard are about. What did you say your names were?”

“Acca,” Helga said, before any of the rest of them could think of names. “These are Wulfric and Alfwald, and the lady-”

“I can speak for myself, thank you,” Rowena said archly, “My name is-” she groped for a second for something plausible, “-Eadgyth,” she said. No sense in making a fool of herself by repeating it, let the man think she had some sort of speech impediment if he thought of it at all. “Is it far?” she asked Helga, trying to recall her role of nervous young bride. “Will I- Should I change? I don’t know if he’ll approve of me as I am-”

“You’ll be fine,” Godric said shortly, scowling so darkly she was half-tempted to tell him his face would crack if he kept it up much longer. “I’m sure he’ll love you.” Helga rolled her eyes at that, and Rowena couldn’t blame her. The balance of how things lay with her and Godric had never been exactly peaceful – they’d hated each other for two solid months when first introduced and quarrelled almost incessantly ever since – but these last couple of years things had grown more complicated than ever before, and Rowena still wasn’t sure whether they’d ended up closer than ever before or even further apart or in some nebulous state with characteristics of both. Whichever it was, it was damnably inconvenient.

“I think he’ll probably skin us alive if we turn up on the doorstep at this time of night,” Helga said, playing along gamely. “You don’t know anywhere cheap where we could rent a room for the night, do you?” she asked the gatekeeper, “We haven’t got much money, and I’d rather not drag everyone out of bed at this hour…”

This was how they had ended up at the sign of the Red Lion, although it had taken some time to coax directions out of the gatekeeper, who kept casting nervous looks at Rowena and muttering about it being no place for a lady of quality. If this inn was no cleaner and no more reputable than the Greyhound had been, it was warmer and the food was hot and savoury. Their fellow patrons were a rowdy lot, but it was an exuberant, friendly rowdiness that reminded Rowena forcibly of Helga’s twin brothers, who still lived with their aunt at Fox Hollow, purportedly to help Wilfrith, the heir to the manor, but more likely just because they happened to like the place. They’d paid with only two of the copper coins from the shared pouch, and the brace of rabbits Helga had snared during the day while the rest of them were sleeping, which the grey-haired landlord took with a wicked grin that Helga had returned in kind. His hands had only six fingers left between them, Rowena noticed with some curiosity, as they paid for their ale and a bare meal of stewed pork and chestnut bread.

“We can’t go on alone,” Gríma said as soon as they were safely ensconced at a corner table, leaning on his elbows and picking at the pork on his trencher. “We’re too conspicuous.”

Rowena nodded, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth. “True,” she said carefully, “But I don’t see that we have any other choice. We can’t afford to join a convoy…”

“Not as passengers, no,” Helga said, considering, “But they’re always looking for guards on the way north. We could volunteer.”

Gríma frowned. “Won’t that be difficult, with my-” he made an eloquent gesture, only to be cut off by Godric, who elbowed him hard enough to make him spill his ale, splashing some on Rowena’s cloak and leaving a dark brown stain against the sickly green.

“Don’t be an idiot, Grím. They never need the guards to do much on these things, just stand around and look menacing, we’ll be fine.”

“Actually,” Helga said, looking between the two of them, “They’re probably going to want a few guards who don’t look the part, so that if anyone gets past the outer guards, they won’t know who else is listening in.”

Gríma frowned, and Rowena couldn’t help but share his misgivings. She didn’t much like the idea of nearly a fortnight having to watch her words and check for eavesdroppers in every corner.

“It sounds awful,” Rowena said, rather more vehemently than she had intended.

“It’s the only way we’re going to get to the fair in time,” Godric replied, “And none of us can afford to wait a full year for the next one. We’re already old for apprenticing.”

None of them could really argue with that, so they lapsed into silence, each immersed in their own thoughts. Rowena still had trouble admitting it to herself, but it didn’t really matter to her what positions were left when they reached the apprenticing fair. It wasn’t something the likes of Godric or Helga or even Grím could understand. All of them knew where they were going, even if only vaguely, but Rowena…the thought of narrowing herself down so tightly, to committing to any one branch of knowledge felt wrong, somehow. Why couldn’t she have all of it? Why couldn’t she study _everything_? In a fortnight’s time, she would be forced to make a decision, and she still didn’t know which way she would turn when that time came.

“So,” she said at last, when none of the others showed any signs of being about to break the silence. “All for the convoy idea?”

Godric and Helga shared a worried look, then Helga nodded sharply and Godric, after a few seconds’ thought, did the same.

“It looks as though it’s the only way,” he said, sounding distinctly morose. And at that Gríma too was obliged to relent, though he seemed tenser than ever as he did so. Rowena could only hope that this wasn’t another mistake in what was starting to seem like one long succession of them that had dominated the last few days.

The sleeping arrangements at this particular inn were rather better than in many such taverns, a rabbit’s warren of little rooms, two of which they were able to rent just on the strength of the game Helga had caught on the way. The maid who showed Rowena and Helga to their room bade them a coy goodnight, batting her eyelashes and all but plastering herself against Helga before she left them, and Helga grinned.

“Apparently I make a prettier boy than I thought I did,” she said, pulling off her cap and letting her hair fall loose around her face. “Do you have a knife on you? I’d like to get this done quickly.”

“What- _Oh!_ ” Rowena drew her eating-knife from her belt, “I’ll do it,” she said, reaching over to catch Helga by the shoulders. “I’ll probably do a neater job than you right now.”

“Right. Ro?”

“Yes?” There was a long silence, and then. “I keep thinking about what must be going on back at the manor,” Helga said quietly, all the tension draining out of her, and for a moment she was the child of ten Rowena had first met four years earlier. “Aunt Aggie and the rest…”

“Me too,” Rowena admitted, pressing Helga down to sit on the bed, carefully teasing her hair out so that she couldn’t slip and cut Helga by accident. “They’d have the fires lit by now,” she said softly, though she had always felt like something of an outsider at Artus’ manor, where all the others had been adopted almost without a second thought. She’d been the last of them to arrive, though only by months, and Agnes of Fox Hollow, while always kind to her, had never taken the same burning interest in Rowena as in the rest of their little coterie. Rowena hadn’t minded, but it had made things awkward sometimes, when they’d been fighting. She remembered Imbolc earlier that year, when Agnes had been convinced that Rowena was playing with the affections of both Godric and Gríma, and the coolness with which she had been treated then.

“I didn’t think I’d miss it this much,” Helga muttered, almost too soft to hear, “I mean, I don’t even miss Mam’s this much…”

“You were there for four years,” Rowena said as the first few locks of violently red hair fell to the ground. “It’s only natural that you’re attached. And,” she added, more quietly, “It was safe there.” She hadn’t realised, before, how much she valued that security. The image of the knight with the broken neck rose up again in her mind and her hand slipped, cutting Helga’s ear and making her yelp in pain.

“Sorry!” Rowena brought her wand out, muttered a few words and the cut healed over. “I didn’t-”

“It’s ok,” Helga said quickly, “I’m fine. This whole thing’s really shaken you up, hasn’t it?”

Rowena started, then slumped slightly. “Do I make it that obvious?” she asked exhaustedly, rubbing at her eyes. “I shouldn’t- The last thing we need now is-”

“You’re shaking,” Helga said, catching her by the arms and pulling her down to sit beside her. “And you’ve barely slept these last few days. _Rest_ , Ro. We mere mortals can handle things well enough without you fretting yourself into an early grave.”

“I don’t _fret_ ,” Rowena protested, but only half-heartedly. Helga’s expression made it quite clear what she thought of that but, perhaps out of mercy, she forbore to comment, merely snorting and picking up Rowena’s knife to continue cutting at her hair. It fell to the floor with a strange, soft noise like a cloak dragging over fallen leaves. Still, to oblige her Rowena stripped off her cloak, boots and dress and slid under the covers in her shift and leggings, her mind still whirling. She still didn’t like the idea of being spied on all the way to Scotland, but in their present situation it didn’t look as though they had any alternative, and any spell they could cast to ensure greater privacy would only draw more attention. She gnawed at her bottom lip, not noticing she was doing it until she tasted blood.

“Stop it,” Helga said without looking around. “You’re still worrying.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No.” Helga turned around, stripping off her tunic to reveal the thin shirt beneath, the fabric well-worn and just beginning to show the outlines of the loose linen binding beneath. “Why should I? It’s not like it’ll change anything.”

Rowena stared at her, then broke off, shaking her head. “You are so much like your cousin sometimes…” she grumbled, sitting up slightly and getting hit in the face by Helga’s tunic for her trouble. “How can you just-”

“Quite easily,” Helga replied, “We’ve got plans for the journey north, and we can sort everything else out when we get there.”

“But- But- How can you be so _certain!_ ” Rowena burst out. “We might not be hired on the convoy! Or if we are and we get to Scotland, we might find no-one willing to take any of us, or they might be cruel, or anything!”

Helga seemed to deflate a little at that, “Yeah,” she admitted, “Anything. And that’s not going to change no matter how how much of a state I work myself into over it, so I don’t. If I started doing that I’d never _stop_.” Helga picked the knife back up, and finished with the last few strands of red hair, cutting so close to her scalp that there wasn’t much left but gingery stubble by the time she’d finished. Rowena was silent as Helga got into bed beside her, lying on the other side of the bolster down the middle of the bed.

“I killed a man,” she said quietly into the dark. Helga didn’t say anything, and so Rowena went on. “Is it- Is it wrong that I’m not sorry he’s dead?” Because she wasn’t, she realised then. She was sorry that she had been the one to do it, but she wasn’t even remotely sorry that he was dead. Had any of the others been the one to kill him she’d have comforted them just as Godric had her and felt him no loss. Killing was one line she’d never crossed before, even when the circumstances had seemed to justify the most desperate measures. And then she was disgusted with herself for thinking that way at all. He had been a man, hadn’t he? A living, breathing man, with a whole life of his own, a whole history she did not know and never would, and now because of her that had ended. Shouldn’t she feel _something_?

Helga was silent on the other side of the bed for several long moments. “I’m the last person who could blame you for what you did,” she said at last. “If you’re looking for someone to tell you what a monster you are, you won’t get it from me.” There was an odd quality to her voice now, almost hesitant, and Rowena cursed herself for not remembering the events which had driven Helga and Gríma from the Welsh valleys where Helga had been born and brought up.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t think-”

“It’s fine.” Helga rolled over, curled on her side. She would not remain so, Rowena knew from years of sharing a room at Fox Hollow with her. Sooner or later sleep would claim her, and then she would either sprawl out over so much of the bed that Rowena would have trouble clinging to the edge or else spend the night tossing and turning in the grip of a nightmare from which Rowena would not be able to wake her however hard she tried. She shivered, and drew the covers closer about herself.

Sleep was a very long time in coming that night.

 


	4. Part 1, Chapter 3

They were all pale and wan and worn at breakfast the next morning, though none of them wanted to show it. The stresses of their journey had caught up with them all at once, as had the knowledge of just how far they had still to go.

“I’m telling you, it’ll be a bloody nightmare finding a place,” Godric was saying, “It’s only a few days ’til the last of the convoys sets off, they’ll be filled solid.”

“We don’t have any choice,” Rowena replied irritably, looking at the others for support. She didn’t get it, as neither Helga nor Grím appeared to be more than half awake, hunched over their bowls of porridge and clearly having trouble keeping their eyes open.

“Just trying to be realistic,” Godric said morosely, “We’re in a right mess.”

“So what else is new?” Gríma asked, the first words any of them had been able to get out of him all morning.

Helga snorted, and cuffed him lightly around the back of the head, “You’re awake then?” she said muzzily, making Rowena want to laugh at the sheer hypocrisy of that statement.

“Are you?” Gríma shot back. Not his strongest comeback, but they were all suffering for lack of sleep so Rowena let it go by. Helga didn’t appear to notice, making a grumpy sort of noise low in her throat and shovelling more porridge into her mouth. She looked different without her hair, her features rendered sharp and strange by the lack of framing in a way that even the cap drawn down over her ears couldn’t make up for. Gríma kept casting puzzled looks in her direction, as though even his poor sight could tell the difference.

“We’ve got the rest of the day, and tomorrow, to find somewhere willing to take the four of us on,” she said. “I don’t think you and Godric will have any trouble, but Gríma and I…” she trailed off. “Well, even those who want more covert guards might not think we’re up to it.”

“Then we’d better do our best to act as though we are,” Helga said, scowling. “Pity none of us has a change of clothes left. Four boys are far more likely to find work as guards than a mixed group, even among wizards.”

“We could buy some,” Godric suggested, “We’ve still got some money left – even got a few coins extra! The landlord was really grateful of those rabbits of yours.” Rowena frowned – clothing was expensive. On the other hand, if it was this or reduce their chances…

“There’s been trouble getting fresh meat lately in the city,” Helga said offhandedly, “One of the maids told me earlier.” As Rowena remembered, that had probably been the same maid who had plastered herself all over Helga and offered a discount rate on certain unspecified services before Helga had been able to convince her that her attentions were quite wasted on her. She’d seemed nice enough, Rowena recalled, from what little she’d seen of the girl, even if Rowena had been completely horrified when she realised precisely what was being meant.

“Good for us, that,” Godric remarked, sounding much more cheerful, “You didn’t catch any more, did you?”

“No, I had to use them all to pay our three days here.” Helga frowned. “We could split up?” she suggested, “Me and Godric go to the inns where the convoys meet, advertising us as four boys looking for work, and you two try and get us provisioned and sorted?”

That seemed a sound enough plan, and so they divided up, Godric and Helga pressing deeper towards the slums on the outskirts of the city and Rowena and Gríma for the marketplaces further towards the centre.

Rowena had been to Lud’s Town before, just once, but it didn’t appear to have changed since then. The same strange mixture of ancient stone and new, haphazard wattle-and-daub structures rose around her now as there had been on her last visit, the stone more weathered and the newer structures more ramshackle, but otherwise mostly unchanged. They made their slow way through the narrow streets, picking their way around puddles and slurry on the ancient paving-stones, the Romans’ last legacy.

“They told me when I was growing up that the streets in Lud’s Town were paved with gold,” Gríma said dryly, “I thought I’d run away here, make my fortune…” he grinned. “I’m pretty glad I didn’t make it, now.”

“It wouldn’t have worked even if it were true,” Rowena pointed out, “If they had enough gold to pave streets with it, it probably wouldn’t be considered particularly valuable. I suppose if you took it from Lud’s Town and then sold it somewhere gold was less commonplace…”

Gríma shook his head, but he was smiling slightly, with the old bemused delight at being liked and included. Rowena couldn’t help a slight pang at that, even going off what little she knew of Gríma’s life before they had known each other.

“I don’t know where the markets are in Lud’s Town,” she said instead. “Do you?”

“No,” Gríma admitted, “I’ve never been here before.”

Rowena frowned, looking around at their fellow pedestrians. “I suppose we could always ask someone…”

“Fair point,” Gríma agreed, looking slightly guilty. “Um- Hadn’t you better do it? I mean, most people are more likely to spit in my face than give me directions, what with my- where I come from, I mean.”

“I’m not exactly that much better off!” Rowena snapped, “I’m a _Scot_ , remember? We’ve been at war with you southerners since the creation of the world, near enough!”

Gríma snorted, but made no reply. Neither of them made any move to ask for directions, though, just following the crowd along until the narrow streets opened up into a broad square, the remains of the old forum, the columns broken up for stonework but the paving-stones still there beneath their feet. It was the stench that hit them first, noisome and complicated and so full of strange and familiar notes that Rowena could barely tell one from the next. People jostled and pressed close all around them, herding livestock, carrying goods, chattering and fighting and herding livestock around them, the noise so absolute that Gríma lost his footing for a little while and Rowena was obliged to guide him for a little while, he leaning on her. And on all sides there were stalls laden with goods, many splendid, but far more shabby and ill-tended.

“Here,” Gríma pressed the sack into Rowena’s hands, “You know how to haggle?”

“I- I think so,” Rowena lied. It couldn’t be so very difficult, could it? Thousands managed it every day without too much trouble, and she’d be damned if she’d fail when _Godric_ could do it with ease. The fact that it had been this same impulse which led to the disaster of her one and only riding-lesson was one she chose to ignore for the time being.

Gríma nodded, which should have been her first sign that there was something wrong, for he’d always been able to catch her in lies before. He seemed tense and wary and strangely distracted, but the worst of his disorientation seemed to have worn off now, and he had his head cocked to one side, listening.

“I need to-” he muttered, “I must-” he shook his head. “There’s something I need to find.”

“What?” Rowena asked, frowning.

“I don’t know.”

She frowned harder, irked. “Where is it, then?”

“I don’t know that either.” Gríma glowered, wrapping his arms around himself, skinny shoulders just starting to shake.

“Then why are you looking for it?” Rowena asked, quite sensibly. “And don’t tell me you don’t know,” she added, starting now to sound distinctly annoyed.

Gríma muttered something which sounded uncannily like ‘but I don’t’, which was neither helpful nor at all conducive to Rowena’s good temper, so that he continued in sullen silence even as she did her best to worm any further details of what this mysterious thing he was seeking might be out of him.

“I’ll know it when I find it,” he said at last, determinedly, “Meet me at the marker-stone? I just- I need to do this.” He was gone without another word, leaving Rowena staring after him in a state of some stupefaction. She muttered a word she had learnt from Helga under her breath, completely butchering the pronunciation, although given that she had only the vaguest idea of what ‘anws blewog’ actually meant beyond that Helga had never dared say it in front of her Aunt Agnes and Godric’s brother Percival had gone a very funny colour when Rowena asked him what it meant and started lecturing Rowena on the evils of female curiosity, an experience she had not found even remotely enjoyable.

“You all right, dearie?” asked a cheerful-looking woman behind one of the more prosperous-looking stalls in a warm Scots brogue achingly familiar to Rowena’s ears. “Your young man run off on you?”

“What- No! No, he isn’t my-” Rowena groped for an excuse, and found one. “He’s my brother,” she lied, looking around, “We’re- we’re going north, to our grandmother’s.”

“And he’s gone and ditched you with all the work,” the woman said, nodding. “Well, that’s men for you. So, what can I get you?”

“What- Oh! Um…” Rowena looked around, “We’ll be joining a larger party, and we don’t have all that much money, what would you recommend?”

The woman’s face seemed to soften as she looked at Rowena. “Aw, dearie. In a right state, I’ll be bound. Tell you what, then, I’ll do you a deal. As a fellow-countrywoman, in a strange land.”

“That’s- That’s very kind of you,” Rowena said stiffly, “What sort of a deal did you have in mind?”

“Nothing so great. Now, you’ll be needing food, that’s certain. Salt beef keeps well, if you’ve a mind to it, but it’ll cost you.”

“And,” Rowena added, quickly. “We’ll need fresh clothes, as well – our other brother, he’s grown out of all his old things-” she broke off, wondering whether she’d said too much to be convincing. The best lies, logically, were those that sounded most like truth. Would she give that much detail, if she were telling the truth? “He’s about my size now,” she went on, hoping she didn’t sound as though she were making this up as she went along, “Or a little bigger – we haven’t been able to get proper measurements.”

“Hmm,” the woman gave her an arch look, smirking slightly, “And does this, ah, _brother_ of yours want bindings as well?” her eyes lingered around Rowena’s chest, leaving no doubt as to her meaning, and Rowena coloured.

“I- I-”

“Oh, hush, will you. You’re not the first girl who’s found it safer that way, you know. Nor will you be the last, I’ll warrant.” She shook her head. “Not that I can blame you, with all the brigands and sorcerers on the north road these days…”

Rowena’s smile grew fixed. “Yes,” she said shortly, looking down at the goods laid out before her. Clothing, she noticed, so she had at least come to the right place. “You can never be too careful.”

Perhaps it was something in the brittle tone of her voice, but the woman’s smile faded, her eyes softening still further. She patted Rowena lightly on the arm. “Here, dearie.” She proffered an odd little token, a rough little ring of iron, apparently handmade, strung on a thin band of what looked like white horsehair. “Put it round your neck. It’ll keep you safe. Everyone knows witches can’t do a thing against cold iron.”

“I thought that was fairies,” Rowena said helplessly, her fingers curling around the token. It was moments like this, she reflected, which meant she couldn’t hate them the way Gríma did. It was hard sometimes, it was so _very_ hard, but then…then she’d remember her father, and how he had gone to one of the very witches he had despised to save her from the rope. Then she remembered women like this one, who were so genuinely _good_ for the most part that it ached to know how they would think of her if they only knew the truth. Then all she could feel was sadness at how strange their world was, that so many good people were killing each other, and over what? It wasn’t a thought Grím would ever understand, but then, so far as he was concerned people were either good or they were evil. He’d only ever seen the worst of what Muggles were capable of, beyond the one or two they’d known who had married witches, and he had been cautious even around them.

“Thanks,” Rowena said, pocketing the amulet and forcing a smile. “So, um, clothes?”

Twenty minutes later, freshly-outfitted in a nondescript suit of boys’ clothes and with her wild curls bundled clumsily into a knitted cap, Rowena wound through the marketplace, Helga’s pack slung over her shoulder, staring this way and that. At one stall the carcass of a goat was being butchered, the stallholder’s knife flashing in the morning son. At another, a merchant held a bolt of rough broadcloth up for the inspection of a waspish-looking matron and the pallid wisp of a boy who stood beside her. At a third, roughly-carved wooden cups and bowls and tankards stood stacked three-deep and nearly toppling over. It felt strangely dizzying, unfamiliar despite the many market-days she had seen at Fox Hollow, and Rowena couldn’t help the shudder that gripped her. There was something wrong about all of this, but she couldn’t for the life of her work out what it was.

“Here, boy!” came a shout from one of the stalls, “What’ve you got there? Boy, I’m talking to you!” It took Rowena a few long moments to realise she was being addressed, by which point the stallholder who had spoken was purple-faced with rage and gesticulating furiously.

“What is it?” she asked, stopping, and realising as she did so that her voice was still pitched far too high. She swallowed, tried to deepen it. It didn’t seem to work, going off the look on the stallholder’s face, but she’d just make a fool of herself if she switched back now.

“What’s that you’ve got there? If you’ve been stealing from my stall, you little bastard-”

Rowena glared at him. “I haven’t even gone near your stall,” she said acidly, hanging back warily, “And even if I had, why would I _want_ to take anything?” she cast a disparaging look over the assortment of what could only loosely be referred to as ‘merchandise’ in front of him. He glowered at her.

“Don’t lie to me, boy, you took something! Turn that bag out! Let’s see what you’ve stolen from me!”

“No, I won’t,” Rowena snapped, pushing Helga’s pack higher on her shoulder. “Go and find someone else to pick on, I’m not going to-”

“Guards!” the man barked, gesturing at her, “This- This vagabond was trying to rob my stall!”

Rowena stayed still, willing herself not to bolt. It wouldn’t do her any good, she knew, for she’d never been very fast and no-one would believe she was innocent if she ran now. She clutched Helga’s pack in white-knuckled fingers as the guard, a short man in battered leather armour, meandered over, looking bored.

“All right, Cena, what is it this time.”

Cena thrust one knotty finger at Rowena. “I told you! That boy’s been stealing from my stall!”

“No, I haven’t,” Rowena said irritably, “Why would I want to do that? If I were going to steal anything, it wouldn’t be this rubbish,” she waved a hand at the stall, her nose wrinkling at the stench. She’d been spending altogether too much time around the other three, she realised, if that was her first defence.

The guardsman grinned. “You’re not the first, lad. Cena here’s got a bit of a habit of this sort of thing.”

“He robbed me!” Cena spat. “I demand-”

“All right, then, let’s have a look.” The watchmen gave Rowena a grimace of commiseration, with an almost palpable air of ‘long-suffering’. “Just show us what’s in the bag and we’ll get this sorted out.”

“Thank you,” Rowena said irritably, holding out Helga’s pack for the guard’s inspection and glaring at Cena, who looked nervous now. No, anxious, because that hint of near-terror in his eyes was too great to be termed mere nervousness.

The guard gave her bag a cursory going-over, nodded and stepped back. “All right, Cena, you know what this means. This is the third time I’ve caught you doing this. It won’t just be geld this time.”

“I- I meant no harm, sir,” Cena said. His voice was shaking now, and Rowena gave him a curious look. He couldn’t be such a coward as that. A few days in a lock-up wasn’t so bad a punishment, and she’d seen smaller, weaker men bear it with far more dignity than this. He turned imploring eyes on her. “Boy, you know I didn’t mean-”

“I know you meant to rob me,” Rowena said harshly. “And if you didn’t want to deal with the consequences, you shouldn’t have done it.” Even the guard was looking askance at her now, but Rowena didn’t much care at this point. Three days of near-misses and snatched sleep had left her in no mood to be charitable.

“You’ve got no-one to blame for this but yourself, Cena,” the guard said warningly. “All right, lad, you can go now. This isn’t something you’ll want to watch.” He was drawing his sword now, Rowena noticed, and an awful certainty began to grow in her.

“I- I hardly think that’s necessary,” she said, eyeing it, “He’s not offering resistance, I’m sure you don’t need-”

“You simple or something?” the guard asked, not altogether unkindly. “All right, if you want to watch that badly, take a few steps back.”

“What? Why?” Cena was weeping now, she saw, ugly, coughing sobs racking his meaty frame. It was an awful thing, to see a man that size cry. The guard called over his shoulder to a pair of his fellows, and they ambled over. Within minutes, it was over.

Years later, Rowena would still remember the strange, unreal sight of Cena’s hand dropping lifeless to the ground as he wailed, the bright, bright red of the big man’s blood. She’d remember the hot rush of nausea, the way her head spun, how it took her a few seconds to quite realise what she had just borne witness to.

And then, quite suddenly, there was a hand on her shoulder, steering her away from the carnage, and a rough Fen-accented voice in her ears, repeating something…a name…her name.

“Gríma?”

“And you accuse me of looking for trouble!” he said, smiling at her in a way that did nothing to cover the way his hands shook. “What happened?”

She shuddered again, wrapping her arms around herself. “I- You saw?”

“Yeah. Well, much as I can, anyway.” He smiled again, and it looked even more forced than the first time. “It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Hadn’t you seen before-?”

“No. We didn’t- We didn’t do that, in Scotland. Branding, or hanging, but never- And he wasn’t even tried-”

“It’s the way things are here.” Gríma’s cloudy eyes had gone hard now. “And branding and hanging aren’t exactly merciful.”

“I know, I just-” she shook her head. “You’re shaking too.”

Gríma blinked, appearing suddenly to realise the way his hands trembled. “I never said I liked it,” he said stiffly, “He’ll probably lose half his income because of what happened here today.”

And she had caused that. Cena had been a nasty piece of work, but still…she hadn’t meant for this to happen, any of it. They were starting to attract curious looks from passers-by now, though they were a way from Cena’s stall, and Rowena pulled herself to her feet fighting to maintain her composure. For a moment, the scene played once again before her eyes, but this time it was not Cena but that unknown soldier from the forest who was begging and pleading with her to let him go. Her hands shook as she adjusted the strap of Helga’s pack across her shoulder, but Gríma could not see it.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Gríma didn’t seem convinced, but he let it go, and the two of them set off again through the crowd. He was having more trouble navigating than usual, she noticed. It must have been more of a shock than he let on. They continued in silence on their way back to the inn, until Rowena remembered.

“Did you find it? The thing you were looking for?”

“No,” Gríma said morosely, “I asked. There’s not a tavern in Lud’s Town that matches- I was so _sure_ -”

“Finally worked out what it was, then?” she asked.

“More or less. Not that it matters, if it doesn’t even exist.” He scowled, hunching into his cloak. “I hate this,” he muttered, but didn’t elaborate further. Rowena watched him nervously, half-expecting another of his violent outbursts of temper. Only Helga knew how to talk him down from those, and this past month had seen more of them than usual. It frightened her, when he got like that.

*

Godric and Helga weren’t there when they finally returned to the inn, late that afternoon, so they ordered two mugs of cheap ale and sat down at a table in a quiet corner. Rowena kept one eye on the door all the while, whether for Godric or more guardsmen she didn’t know. Gríma was tenser than ever, snappish and surly as he had been before the accident which had lost them the horses.

“They’ll be fine,” she said, as much for her own benefit as his. “You know what those two are like.”

Gríma shot her a small, grateful smile, but his twitchiness did not abate, and Rowena left him to it, watching the other patrons with interest. They were a motley, disreputable collection, few of whom seemed to care for being observed. That group of brightly-dressed women by the door with the painted faces – were they prostitutes? Rowena had never met one before. Her father had kept a mistress, true, but she had been a lady of as high a degree as any of her mother’s ladies – had been one of Rowena’s mother’s ladies, in fact, before Lord Brandon began to have an eye for her. The two sitting at the bar, scarred and battle-worn warlocks – mercenaries? Cutthroats? Or just locals? The very walls seemed to loom in overhead, and though Rowena kept chiding herself for how silly she was being, even that could not dispel the sense of menace that had dogged her ever since…ever since they woke up in a little village, attended to by a healer who would soon betray them. Had the world really become so much more dangerous in the space of a few days? Or was it just that she had now awoken fully to the dangers of what they were doing? Neither thought was precisely comforting.

The door swung open then, admitting Godric and Helga, who at least seemed to have had a happier time of it than she and Gríma had done.

“We’re in,” Godric said gleefully, throwing himself down between them as Helga took her seat on the other side. “We’ve got places as caravan guards. Apparently we’re meant to get a bit of training while we’re doing it, you know, in the more physical side – I told them you two were better with magic than-”

“But that’s wonderful!” Rowena exclaimed, delight at their success briefly managing to break through her own fears and worries. “Really!”

Helga shrugged, looking every bit as pleased with herself as Godric. “They looked like they were having trouble finding anyone,” she said, “I think the earlier convoys had snapped up all the decent guards.”

“All the better for us, then!” Godric said cheerfully, and Helga and Rowena shared a worried look behind his back. Godric, though, was looking from Rowena to Gríma and the smile had slid off his face. “You two all right?” he asked, “You look as though someone just died.”

“There was a bit of trouble at the market,” Gríma said shortly. “A thief or some such.”

Rowena shuddered. “I don’t know whether he was a thief or not – he was just a stallholder, and it was my fault-”

“You couldn’t have known,” Godric said soothingly, reaching over as though to pat her back and stopping short before he could touch her. “You couldn’t have known. Anyway, the Ordeals aren’t fool-proof. If he’s got any sense, he’ll go for something easy and then he’ll get off no problem.”

“No- They didn’t- He didn’t _get_ a trial, Godric.” Rowena said, revulsion and fury bound up now so tightly together she could hardly tell the one from the other. “They just-” she broke off, furious at the law and her own weakness both. She had seen worse than this before, hadn’t she? Though she’d never been taken to watch the hangings, she had come near enough to swinging there on the gibbet herself, and yet this was enough to leave a knot in her stomach at the sheer, unthinking brutality of the act.

“What- But they can’t, can they? I mean, not even an Ordeal, they can’t-”

“Apparently they could,” Helga said, “We’re not in Fox Hollow any more, things are going to be different.”

Godric had gone pale beneath his freckles, not that Helga seemed to have noticed.

“We’ll be leaving anyway, early tomorrow,” she said, withdrawing a small purse from her belt, “Here’s the first half of our payment, and we’ll get the rest when we arrive.” She handed it over to Gríma, who weighed it in one hand and handed it back to her. “What coinage are they using?” he asked. “Every lord in the country seems to have something different.”

“It looked like a mixture, to me,” Helga replied. “I don’t think it really matters, so long as it’s solid enough, and the pouch is too heavy for much to have been skimmed off them.”

Rowena nodded, “Well, that’s a relief,” she said in a falsely brisk, matter-of-fact tone of voice. “I’d been worrying about how we were going to pay for these next few days here.”

Godric gave her a hard look then, and Helga too seemed uncomfortable, but if they noticed the slightly forced edge to her voice, they were kind enough not to mention it and Helga soon steered the conversation off into a reminiscence about the troll incident a few weeks after Rowena had been brought to Fox Hollow. It had been one of the most terrifying incidents of her young life, and yet she would not have traded it for anything. It was, after all, the fight with the troll which had cemented her friendship with the other three. She and Helga had been friendly enough beforehand, but the two boys had made no secret of how much of a nuisance they considered her, or she them. But there were some things that tended to either make or break a friendship, and being attacked by a mountain troll was one of them.

“Of course, Aunt Agnes was furious when she caught us,” Helga was saying now, grinning and looking over at Rowena, “Do you remember? If Ro hadn’t had the sense to-”

“Well, I wasn’t all that much use during the fight itself, was I?” Rowena said archly, “You three had already saved my life three times over that evening; I couldn’t just let you get into trouble.” She’d been too scared to do anything, really, except run and scream and pray someone would find her. Her magic was still new to her then, uncontrolled, and she knew no defence that would hold against such a creature.

“You didn’t have to incriminate yourself to do it, though,” Gríma said, and Godric nodded.

“He’s got a point there,” he agreed, “I never did ask why you did that.”

“Oh.” Rowena felt the blood rushing to her face, and looked away to make it at least a little less obvious. “Well, it was my fault you got into trouble…If I hadn’t run off…”

“Don’t be silly,” Helga said, “Godric was awful to you- You know you were!” she added, casting an accusing look at her cousin.

“What- I- We weren’t-” Godric spluttered, “I mean…what I said was out of line, but…”

Rowena made a dismissive gesture. “Well, it’s not like it matters. It’s been years since the troll now anyway.” She moved on hastily, before any of the others could reply. “Anyway, could you tell us more about this convoy we’re supposed to be guarding?”

“What- Oh, right. Um…pretty standard, actually. I mean, I obviously haven’t told them you’re…” Godric gestured at her and went very red.

“We told them your name was Rowan, and that you and Grím are brothers,” Helga piped up, “So that shouldn’t be difficult to remember and gives us some leeway if anyone forgets. Two hundred people, all in all, and about thirty guards. We’re right at the bottom of the pecking-order, though.”

“So what’s changed?” Gríma asked, “Any word on where we’ll all be sleeping?”

Godric shrugged. “We’ll be sleeping rough, according to Hafwen – that’s the woman in charge – unless we can come to an agreement with one of the carters.”

“ _Wonderful_ ,” Gríma muttered sourly. “Really brilliant. We’ll be waking up with our hair frozen to the ground again, I can tell.” Helga and he shared a look of profound and rather melodramatic commiseration.

“Oh, shut up, will you,” Godric said good-naturedly, “It’ll be an adventure. Besides, we’ve managed well enough this far, haven’t we?”

Both Grím and Helga turned to look at him, both equally incredulous.

“Managed well enough?” Gríma repeated. “How are you defining that, exactly? ‘Still alive’? Though, given our luck,” he added, tapping the wooden table with one finger, “That’s probably the best we can hope for.” A grin flashed momentarily across his face. “So, now that’s settled, if this is going to be our last hot meal that we don’t have to cook ourselves, I’d rather it were sooner than later.”

Rowena rolled her eyes. “ _Boys_ ,” she muttered, “Honestly, you’re as bad as Godric!”

“They have a point, though,” Helga agreed, “Don’t you remember what it was like, being on the road down from Scotland?”

Rowena frowned, racking her brains. “No,” she admitted at last, “Not…not clearly, anyway. It’s all a sort of haze.”

“Well, there you are, then! And there’ll be other people around, too – I’m sure we’ll be able to find someone to help us,” Godric said, with what seemed to Rowena to be quite unwarranted optimism. “Or, like Helga said, come to an arrangement with someone. I mean, they’re the ones we’ll be guarding, so they’ll be grateful enough, won’t they?”

“Don’t bet on that,” Gríma warned, and looked for a moment bemused, as though wondering who had spoken. He glowered down at his ale, and said no more.

Rowena considered prodding him to see if he had anything else to add, but thought better of it. “Well,” she said, “I hope so, but I think we ought to have some other plan, just in case.”

“You worry too much,” Godric said easily.

Helga snorted. “Godric, since we left Fox Hollow we’ve been betrayed once, chased by knights on horseback and robbed, and that’s without mentioning the accident that lost us the horses. She’s got a point.”

Godric’s ears went red at that, Rowena noticed with some amusement. They always did, when someone got the best of him.

“I’m not saying- But we’ll be with other wizards now, won’t we? They won’t-”

“Won’t they?” Helga asked, “You know better than that.” Her hands were shaking now, Rowena saw, and she reached over to steady them with hers. Helga started, and flashed a sudden, grateful half-smile at her. She had never heard the full details of what had driven Helga and Gríma from the Welsh mountain village where Helga’s mother and brothers still lived, but she had heard enough to guess at what had happened there. Helga still screamed sometimes in the night, trapped in dreams Rowena could not begin to understand.

“Why is it,” Godric muttered, “That every time things seem to be going well you three start predicting doom?”

“Experience?” Helga suggested, shaking out a few coins from the group purse, “Let’s face it, when have we ever had anything go according to plan?”

“Yeah, all right,” Godric muttered, “But we’ve survived everything thus far, haven’t we? And a few nights out of doors won’t kill us.”

Rowena shook her head. “No, it won’t,” she said, “But it will be dangerous.”

“So? We’re going to be guards, aren’t we? If they didn’t think we could handle danger they wouldn’t have taken us on.”

Rowena tried to smile, and to ignore the words ‘arrow fodder’ which kept repeating themselves in the back of her mind. Still, they had fought before. There had been the flock of Dementors that had attacked Fox Hollow two years ago, and before that the troll. It wasn’t as though they were completely defenceless. They had even survived those hybrid monsters that the half-giant hermit Gríma had befriended in the woods near Fox Hollow had so loved to breed – what had his name been? It was on the tip of her tongue- Braith? Eade? Bayard? After that, Rowena began to think that ordinary bandits might be something of a relief. She shook herself, and the face of that one soldier flashed across her mind, broken and pathetic in death. Could she do that again? She didn’t know.

“Well, if that’s the end of that,” Helga said, “The landlord says they’ve got pheasant in, if anyone’s interested?”

“Pheasant?” Rowena asked, “In a place like this? How on earth did they afford-” she cut herself off. “How are they affording any of this? I thought only the nobility-”

Helga grinned at her. “I think that barman has a few contacts,” she said slyly, “And I wouldn’t put money on them being all that concerned with station. Is that a yes to pheasant, then?”

“What- Oh, all right, then.”

Helga disappeared into the crowd, which closed around her, temporarily blocking her from view. It was getting dark now, evening coming on fast. The few dim tallow candles were sputtering, and giving off a strong, rank, animal smell that filled the whole inn. Who would have thought, five years ago, that her life would bring her here? Then her future had been all laid out – she would marry some suitable knight, bear children and live much the same sort of life as her mother and grandmother before her. It hadn’t been a bad future, not really. Better than most of the girls she had grown up could hope for, in fact. Rowena felt almost ashamed of how glad she was to have avoided it.

“We’ll be given quarterstaffs tomorrow,” said Godric, “They can’t really afford to arm us much better than that.”

“And we’ll be taught how to use them?” Rowena asked, meeting his eyes.

Godric nodded, “I told them you didn’t have much physical training, and I’d never handled anything much bigger than a cudgel.”

“Hmm,” Rowena said. The words ‘arrow fodder’ ran through her mind once again. If it came to that-

“Don’t worry, they know you’re really good at magic, too,” Godric added hastily, “Seemed more interested in that than anything else. I mean, I told them you were the best I knew-”

“Did you?” Rowena asked, absurdly pleased.

“Yeah, ‘course I did,” Godric replied, and it was the casualness of it that undid her, as though he would never think of doing anything else. She couldn’t have helped the way she beamed at him then if she had wanted to. Gríma looked amused though, for some reason, and though she knew it was ridiculous she couldn’t help but blush. Godric apparently felt the same – his ears had gone red again.

“Here!” Helga had come back again, carrying a heavy wooden tray with two wooden bowls and two trencher, none of which seemed to contain anything like pheasant. “There wasn’t any pheasant left by the time I got there, but another customer couldn’t pay, so I was able to get these half-price.”

“Good thinking!” Gríma said, grinning. “Er- what is it?”

“Two of them are stewed mutton and mushrooms, and then you’ve got a choice of smoked eel with lentils or vegetable stew and barley bread,” Helga replied, “I suppose there’s no point in asking what you’ll have?”

“You do know that’s disgusting, don’t you?” Godric remarked, as Gríma drew the eels towards him. Gríma ignored him, taking a horn spoon and his eating-knife out of the pouch at his belt. Still, he did not seem too disgusted to take to the stewed mutton with gusto, and now there was food in front of her Rowena realised for the first time just how hungry she really was. The conversation soon broke up as soon as they all had a meal in front of them – probably their last good meal for some time – and it was some time before it resumed.

“So,” Godric asked, tearing a hank off his grease-soaked trencher and chewing it, “This place where the fair’s being held – what’s it called again-?”

“Caerlaverock,” Rowena supplied, “It’s an old Roman fort, or it was. It’s more like a proper castle now, except for the shape.”

“What’s so funny about that?” Helga asked, mopping up the last of her stew with a piece of barley bread

Rowena shrugged, “My father always said it was triangular,” she replied, “He went there on business once or twice when I was little, before-” she broke off. “Anyway, I don’t think it’ll really matter – the fair is held outside the castle walls.”

“So, no real defences?” Gríma asked, suddenly on edge.

“I think the idea is that isolation works well enough on its own,” Rowena explained. “It’s not really cultivated land, and with all the giants-”

“There are giants?” Godric yelped.

Rowena shook her head, “Only in the mountains, but the borders are full of them, on both sides. They don’t come down very often – too many people. But all the same, it does keep Muggles away.”

“It’s safe, though?” Helga asked, frowning. “The last thing any of us needs is to get trodden on by a giant before we can even get to the fair.” She smirked a little on the last few words, apparently amused.

“More or less,” Rowena promised. “Well, as safe as anywhere is these days.”

Maybe it was the reminder of the events earlier in the day that did it, or perhaps it was something else, but none of them really seemed to feel like talking after that, and as they excused themselves one by one and slipped off to the rabbit’s warren of cramped, shabby little rooms in the back of the inn Rowena felt strange, as though she were dreaming and just on the verge of waking up. But before she could quite grasp it, the feeling slipped away, and she could not recall it. By morning, she had forgotten entirely.


	5. Part 1, Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or: The one with the bandits. Quite a short chapter this time, sorry, but I've just come off mock-exam month so things have been a bit stressful. The method for removing arrows shown here is not perfect, but is period-accurate and much safer than the more commonly shown 'just pull the arrow out and hope for the best' technique.

The carts ground to a stop, and Rowena groaned sleepily, lifting her head. “What is it?” she asked sleepily, blinking in the bright afternoon sunlight. Damn it all, she’d spent all night on watch and now she couldn’t even-

“Front waggon’s got a stuck wheel,” said the carter she’d been able to talk into letting her sleep in the back of his cart. “We’ll be here for a good long while.”

“Right.” She shifted, settling in the hay and wrapping her cloak tighter about herself. Nearly a fortnight on the road and not even at the border, with the walkers bound to the speed of the slowest of the carts. The mud was the worst of it, churned up below the wheels and sucking them in so that they stopped and started more than they were moving, and froze in the night so that those unlucky enough to have no place in the carts found themselves half-trapped in the frosty mire when they woke. As guards, they really had a better lot than many. Not that any of them had been able to convince Godric of that, of course. Rowena had undergone this journey once before, going south, and both Gríma and Helga had undergone periods of near-starvation due to the famine that had, in part, led to their arrival in Fox Hollow. Godric, though, had lived all his life a knight’s son, and always been used to three delicious meals a day, courtesy of his parents’ cook. Life on the road, with minimal comforts and little enough food even on good days, had made him almost unbearable to be around. Helga’s grumbling about how soft four years of comparative luxury with her aunt and uncle at Fox Hollow had left her was little better, but at least that was usually in an undertone, and so could often just be ignored.

The journey had begun badly, from the moment – just a few hours out from Lud’s Town – when Gríma had not seen the seven swans that everyone else in their party had taken for an omen, good or ill. Hafwen, a big, hard-handed woman fast approaching middle age, had actually hit Godric over that, leaving a dark bruise which was only now beginning to fade from purple to an ugly yellow-brown. All their pay had been docked afterwards, to pay for Gríma’s passage, as they had refused to leave him and Hafwen wouldn’t have a blind man guarding one of her conveys, despite Grím’s insistence that he could handle himself as well as any of them if it came to it. He still insisted on joining whichever one of them was assigned the night watch every evening, and had got into trouble for it more than once.

Rowena rolled over, finding it suddenly very difficult to get comfortable amidst the hay. She had not thought yet about what awaited her at her destination. But then, for one such as her, with no trade or calling she could name but her magic, it was clear. She would enter a convent, she supposed, to study one path or other – transfiguration, maybe, for she had always been good at it – and remain there to take orders. Helga would go and train as a blacksmith, and Rowena thought she would do well. Godric…Godric would find someone to squire for, she was quite sure of that. There was only one of their party, now, whose future was still uncertain, and nothing Rowena could do for him even if he would let her. She would be safe while he faced danger and uncertainty, hidden behind high walls as one among many sisters. It was not so very different from what her father had originally intended for her, before her magic had become too widely-known for anything but the rope, to send her away to some house of religion and let her be forgotten there. She wondered what he would have thought if he had known how many supposed abbeys were really the colleges of witches. Probably he would have laughed too, but her memories of him were fading now, she could no longer be quite sure. Yes, the scholar’s life would suit her. Maybe she would remain there, and take orders – a life of contemplation and study, away from the troubles of the outside world. She entertained the thought for a few moments, considering it, weighing it.

“R’ena?” someone said nearby, and Rowena started, rolling over to see Godric watching her from where he sat on the edge of the cart.

“You-” she shook her head, and continued in a fierce undertone. “Godric, you can’t call me that, you know we’re on our last chance already-”

He snorted. “Yeah. I was there, remember.” He rubbed at the bruise again, still scowling and staring off into the dark. Rowena suppressed a groan.

“Do you know where Helgar is?” she asked instead, levering herself up on her forearms and trying to roll the cricks out of her shoulders. Godric looked blank for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. Niven called h- called him up on punishment duty a couple of hours ago.”

Rowena frowned. “But sh- he was on the night watch with me last night. He shouldn’t have been called up for another watch until at least mid-afternoon.”

“Cheeked an officer, last I heard,” Godric said moodily, “Something about a girl, Niven said.”

“Really?” she asked, frowning, “What happened?”

Godric snorted. “What usually happens with mercenaries and girls? One of them was trying to throw his weight around, and Helga got mixed up in it.” He sounded distinctly sour now, but there was something almost like panic on his face. “If she gets us all thrown out of here…”

“I know,” Rowena agreed in an undertone, “But _Helgar_ ,” she emphasised the name, casting a significant look at the carter. “Can take care of himself. And Grím? Where is he?”

“No idea,” Godric admitted, “He was gone before I woke up.”

“Oh.” Rowena looked around worriedly. It would be just like Gríma to blunder into some sort of trouble while the rest of them were busy with other things. He was always doing it. Godric bumped his shoulder against hers, and for the first time in more than a week flashed a smile at her. “Don’t worry about it. He’s not that thick.”

“I never said he was,” Rowena replied in exasperation, “But you can’t say he isn’t careless. Is there anything to eat?” The moment she said it, she regretted it. Godric was being tolerable company for the first time in what felt like an age. The last thing they needed now was a reminder of how little food there was on the road, and Godric’s resentment at their whole situation.

“Here,” he said, and Rowena blinked as he pressed a few coarse crusts of black bread into her hand. “Saved it from breakfast – sort of figured you’d want something after last night.”

She stared at him, unreasonably touched. “This must’ve been half your share-” she protested.

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “Helgar says you look like you’re coming down with something. I sort of figured you could do with a bit more than you get.”

“We’ll be at the border in three days,” Rowena said, pulling away slightly, “Another week after that and we should be there.”

Godric swore, and for once Rowena couldn’t even chide him for it. The fair would have already started before they arrived there, and every inn and way-house for miles around would be filled past bursting point. And that was without considering how many positions would already have been filled by the time they reached the fair.

“There’ll be hardly any places left by the time we get there,” she said, letting her shoulders slump. “And a whole year until the next fair. I suppose we could try to find work locally, but…” she bit her lip, considering.

“Oh, stop fussing, it’s not like you’ve got anything to worry about,” said a new voice, and Rowena started, only to see Helga rounding a corner to join them, looking sulky. She flopped down onto the hay beside Rowena, exhaustion written in every line of her face and body. “I’ll bet you anything you like that they’ll be climbing over each other to get you as an apprentice, once they see what you can do.”

“Helga!” Rowena hissed, then clapped both hands over her mouth, looking around frantically to see if anyone at noticed. No-one was looking at them, but that didn’t mean anything.

“Don’t be modest,” Helga went on irritably, “You’ve got a better chance than any of us of getting a good place for yourself, you’ve no call for modesty. We’re the ones who’re going to have to worry.” She scowled, picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of her tunic. “I don’t like this,” she muttered, glaring out at the trees. “All these forests…it’s the perfect place for an ambush.”

Godric snorted, “Like we’ve got anything worth stealing,” he said sourly. “Even the horses wouldn’t fetch much. No-one but a knacker’s would take them in this sort of state.” Rowena thought she saw the carter throw Godric a dirty look for that, but she couldn’t argue. Even she, who knew almost nothing about horses, could see that the ones that pulled the waggons were sorry specimens indeed.

“There’s still us, Rickon,” Helga reminded him. “And I don’t think a slaver is going to care what sort of state we’re in when we reach him.”

Rowena shuddered a little at the thought. She’d seen slaves before, though she’d never been entirely at ease with the trade. The thought of seeing the others in such a state, cowed and beaten and usually half-starved to boot, being slowly worked to death under the whip, was horror. “You think it’s likely?” she asked, looking around. “I thought the trade was focused more in the south.”

“You’ll find slavers everywhere,” Helga said dismissively. “And bandits will sell to anyone, they can’t afford not to.” She huddled into her cloak, grimacing. “So there’s something to look forward to.”

Godric made a low, irritable sound in his throat, and the three of them subsided into uneasy silence until the bellow rang out across the camp.

“HELGAR! HELGAR, YOU POXY WHORESON! WHERE ARE YOU?”

Rowena suppressed a groan as Niven, one of the lower-ranking regular guards, rounded the corner. Godric and Helga were not so circumspect, and so attracted Niven’s attention first as he rounded on Helga.

“Why didn’t you come when I called, you lazy little wretch?” he demanded, cuffing Helga hard around the ear. She glowered up at him, shaking her head a little. Rowena almost moved to intervene, but a warning look from Helga stopped her in her tracks.

“I just came off duty,” Helga said irritably, rubbing at the back of her neck, “And I was on watch half last night. Can’t you use someone else?”

“Sergeant’s passing the word for you,” Niven replied, with an expression of malicious satisfaction which would have looked childish on someone half his age. It was, Rowena thought, the sort of expression she was more used to seeing on Euphrasia, her usual nemesis back in Fox Hollow, whenever she had succeeded in getting Rowena or Helga or one of the other village girls into some sort of trouble.

“Right,” Helga pulled herself to her feat, grimacing and rolling her shoulders. She made a face over Niven’s shoulder, and Rowena couldn’t quite stifle her laughter, turning Niven’s attention on her.

“Something funny, Rowan?” he asked, looming still further. “Want to share the joke?”

“No,” Rowena replied shortly, “Am I being called out too?” On reflection, she really should have known better.

“Well, if you’re so keen,” Niven said in false, cloying solicitude. “Report to Glaedwine at the middle waggons, then, and be quick about it-”

“But sh- but he didn’t-” Godric burst out, going as violently red as the stubble on his shorn head.

“What are you, married?” Niven snapped at him, then paused, smirking at Godric’s spluttered response. “Always thought you might be a sod,” he said, with an expression of something halfway between satisfaction and disgust before nodding to Rowena. “Thought we might be able to make something of that one, though. That’s another week on punishment watch. You can join your little blind friend and see to the horses.”

Godric scowled, and when Rowena tried to catch his eye he turned away, his ears gone lobster-red.

“All right, stop lollygagging,” Niven said, in a tone that was probably meant to be brisk but came out as gloating. It probably wasn’t his fault – Rowena had a sneaking suspicion that Niven had probably been born sneering – but it was irksome all the same, and the hard blow to the back of the knees she received from his cudgel, leaving her sprawling in the mire, did nothing to improve her opinion of him as she dragged herself back to her feet and hurried off towards the middle waggons. Whatever else Glaedwine might have been, he was a step up from Niven.

Glaedwine the Mercian was a short, stooped man, not yet old, but so ferociously ugly it was difficult to determine his exact age. Logically, Rowena should have liked him – he was easily the most competent person bar Hafwen in the whole convoy, and had more patience with the new guards’ ineptitude than most – but given that he had been the one to ferret out Gríma’s deception she couldn’t help her nervousness whenever she was unfortunate enough to venture into his presence.

“Rowan?” he demanded as she approached, “What’re you doing here?”

Rowena drew her wand, looking around nervously at the half-dozen boys and men around her. Thirty men to guard two hundred. It had never struck her so strongly before how perilously undefended they really were. “Niven sent me,” she replied, “He seemed to think you needed more help?”

“It’d be welcome,” Glaedwine admitted, eyeing her as though she were a half-broken filly being put through its paces. “Got your club?”

“Here, sir,” Rowena replied, producing it from the loop of leather at her belt which served as a sort of scabbard. Glaedwine huffed, but gave no reply, and Rowena fell in with the rest of the group, all of whom were gripping wands and cudgels and looking fixedly ahead with expressions ranging from boredom to mortal terror.

“All right, then!” Glaedwine drew his own wand, “Fan out, circle the convoy. If you see anything suspicious, send up red sparks, and don’t bother to wait for confirmation. Rowan, Merehwit, Osgar, take the far side of the convoy, Sigebald, Ranulf and Raynar the near! Spread out. Mereh, you’re an illusionist – can you make it look as though we’ve got a few more men?”

Merehwit, a massive black-bearded old veteran whose face looked as though it had been minced at some point in the not-so-distant past, nodded and slurred out something which was probably an affirmative. Six people appeared out of nowhere, their outlines faintly misty for a moment before sharpening into something like life. Rowena stared at the nearest one, which was all but a doppelganger of herself, even as Merehwit’s face screwed up again in concentration (or at least, that’s what she thought it was doing – it was difficult to tell through all the scars) and it shifted slightly, gaining a foot in height and its hair changing from brown to black. He flicked one ham-like hand at them, and they walked, rather awkwardly Rowena thought, to join the two groups. They were not quite like real people – they looked all right when they were still, but whenever they moved the subtle _wrongness_ of the illusions became clear.

“Those things give me the collywobbles,” Osgar muttered, grimacing and looking around at Rowena. “It’s not right, making doubles of people like that…”

“It’s better than getting killed by bandits,” Rowena replied primly, taking up her position and tapping her cudgel nervously against her leg.

Osgar responded with a gesture that Rowena had never seen before, but could divine the meaning of easily enough. She didn’t even bother to restrain herself from rolling her eyes this time. And so they waited. Rowena had not been long in realising the truth of the old saying that most of a soldier’s life – or, indeed, a guard’s – was made up of mind-numbing boredom. She’d grown used to it, to be honest, and despite her words she found herself more interested in her own plans for the future than watching for bandits. It would have to be transfiguration, she decided. She’d always enjoyed the subject, but more than that, the notion of metamorphosis had always held a certain quiet fascination for her. It wasn’t anything she could properly describe, but just watching as the shape of something warped and twisted and changed at the tip of her wand filled her with a rush of something like excitement and shame all at once. It was also the most difficult magical discipline there was, limiting the competition for a place to study it in one of the cloisters, which could only be a help to a latecomer such as her. One of the more northerly houses would be best if she had any choice in the matter – it had been too long since she had heard her own native Gaelic spoken in any voice but hers. It was roughly then, as she was remembering the spread of moors and hills and forests, the peculiar golden light of the highlands in early evening, imagining the high walls of a cloister, the scent of peat and heather on the breeze, that the second half of that old soldier’s saying reasserted itself.

There was an odd, jerking, choking noise nearby and Rowena turned to see Osgar crumpling, the dark-feathered tail of an arrow protruding from his throat. It wasn’t like the scene at the marketplace. There was no numbness, no delaying the reaction. He was dead. They were under attack. Her wand was in her hand, but she was too slow – she fumbled it, and then the first of the bandits was on her, frothing at the mouth the way she had heard of Northman berserkers doing in the few stories of the raids that had reached her. She brought her cudgel around, but too slowly to make any difference. All the wind was knocked out of her, and it was all she could do to scramble backwards, fumbling for her wand as he bore down on her, feral light gleaming in his eyes.

“Stupefy!” and he crumples, but too fast and too hard, leaving her trapped half-under his unconscious body. And, all at once, she remembers herself enough to be afraid.

Rowena tried to drag herself away, but the bandit’s body lay still and heavy atop her and she couldn’t find the strength to shove him away for all her struggling, leaving her pinned and desperate as two more bandits appeared out of the dust.

“Impedimenta!” she cried, but her voice was shrill and faltering and even she was surprised when the smaller of the two froze in his tracks. The larger of the two bandits seemed about as shocked, casting a horrified look at his frozen compatriot before his face twisted with rage and he flung himself at her, screaming at in her in language that was neither English nor Gaelic nor at all polite. “Stupefy!” she cried, but he was too close, and her spell went wide over his shoulder as he bore down on her. “Stupefy! Impedimenta!”

“Avada Kedavra!” came a roar from behind her, and Rowena watched helpless as the beam of green light, green as poison, green as apples, green as sin, hit the bandit square between the eyes.

Rowena looked around, twisting painfully to see who had cast the spell, but then there were huge, rough hands on her shoulders, dragging her out from under the felled bandits, and there was no more time for thinking, no more time for anything as an arrow slammed into the side of the cart beside her and she raised her wand again, only for Merehwit to club the archer over the head with his cudgel so hard Rowena could see scraps of pinkish-white, spotted here and there with darker red-brown on the club when Merehwit lifted it again. Gods, had he-?

There wasn’t time to think on that, though. Rowena levelled her wand at the bandit attacking Ranulf.

“Stupefy!” she barked out, and the bandit fell. Ranulf looked up and saluted, but there was no time for more. The bandits were thinning out now, falling thick and fast on every side. Within a few minutes, it was all over.

Rowena barely heard Glaedwine’s barked orders to start on gathering the bodies together to be buried, barely felt the hearty clap on the shoulder she received and the reassurance that it was all right, a lot of lads got taken funny in their first fight and now at least she knew what to expect for next time. She felt odd, light-headed, but not nauseous as she had been after the death of that young knight. She remembered his face still – his fair curls wet with blood and his neck twisted impossibly to one side – and yet she could not think of the faces of any of those who had attacked her in this last skirmish. Many lay dead now, and those who weren’t would be soon enough. The man she had stunned lay with his chest stove in as though by a hammer-blow nearby, and she couldn’t say how it had happened.

She flicked her wand at the bodies, and watched as they shrank and twisted until there was nothing there but a heap of small bones, the sort that would have been thrown to the dogs in her father’s house or at Fox Hollow. It felt like an action outside herself, as though she was watching a girl in too-big boys’ clothing with a little stick of vine wood gripped tight in one white and shaking hand. What a fool she must look, she thought all of a sudden. It was not a comfortable thought.

“Rowan!” it was Sigebald, a youth of perhaps seventeen or eighteen with a plain, pale, rather heavy face. He seemed a little out of breath, and looked worried, “You all right?”

“Fine,” Rowena replied, forcing a smile. “And you? That cut, shouldn’t you get it looked at? If it gets infected-”

“Healer’s got bigger things to worry about than that,” Sigebald said breathlessly, “This all of them?”

“All I could find,” Rowena replied dully. She was still smiling, she realised. It felt like the only thing holding her together just then. By the way Sigebald was looking at her right then, though, it wasn’t quite having the desired effect. She didn’t stop smiling. “Come on. We’ll get these to Merehwit and then,” she drew in a breath, “Well, my friend Helgar – you know, Godric’s cousin? – he knows a bit about healing on account of his mother being a herb-woman, I’m sure he’d be willing to take a look at it.”

Sigebald waved her off, still looking quite unsettled, “Yeah, maybe later, I’m sure it’ll be fine-”

“It _won’t_ be fine! Haven’t you ever heard of wounds turning septic if they’re not attended to? She gestured at the pile of weapons next to the bones, “These have so much rust on them I’m surprised they didn’t fall apart during the fight, do you have the least idea-”

“All right, all right, I’ll do it!” Sigebald took a sharp step back, raising his hands in surrender, and grinned at her. “Anything to avoid your wrath. Christ, you’re as bad as a girl for fussing.”

Rowena blinked, for a moment utterly dumbfounded. “And what’s wrong with that?” she demanded as soon as she recovered her voice. “Better than you lot haring off not caring if your arm rots and drops off because you thought it was _weak_ of you to get it treated properly, never mind that people die all the time because they’ve cut themselves on a scythe or something and not had it attended to-”

“Rowan!” came a coarse, Fen-accented voice from somewhere behind her, “Ro!”

Rowena turned, caught suddenly off-guard, “Gríma?” she asked. He looked awful, bruised and filthy, with blood dripping from her temple and what looked like a broken nose that had been newly – and inexpertly – set. “Oh, for- _Episkey!_ ” His nose re-set itself with a soft, sickening _crunch_.

Sigebald gave her a curious look. “That Greek?” he asked, frowning. “Didn’t sound like any spell I’ve ever heard of.”

“It’s derived from Greek,” she admits, “I don’t remember where I learnt it.” She looked down at her boots, feeling suddenly very tired, and it took effort to get the next couple of words out through that awful, fixed smile. “What is it, Grím?”

“You’re injured,” he said, pointing to her arm. Rowena looked down, noticing for the first time the strange wetness against her arm, the dull ache she had put down to exhaustion or stress. She was not expecting the broken-off shaft of an arrow protruding from her upper arm, and Sigebald drew in a hissing breath as she examined it, trying to pull it free.

“Don’t do that!” Gríma snapped, pale as paper beneath his bruises, “Come on. Helgar’s just finished patching Godric up – don’t touch it.”

Rowena bridled. “I can’t exactly go around with-”

“You won’t be able to walk anywhere if you bleed out because the arrow isn’t there to stem the bleeding,” Gríma retorted, “I forgot you haven’t seen much of this sort of thing before.”

Rowena glared him, but Gríma didn’t notice. The ache in her arm was getting worse, blooming into real, throbbing, bone-deep pain as the rush of adrenaline from the fight began to fade.

“Sigebald needs his arm looking at too – it should be cleaned and dressed before he goes back on watch,” she said, taking a few steps and wincing as the world spun dizzily around her for a moment. She felt a hand on her shoulder, steadying her, and leant on it gratefully until her vision cleared.

“Thank you,” she said, glancing up at Sigebald, who shrugged, looking strangely pale and unhealthy. His injuries must be worse than she had thought, she reflected distantly. “Where’s Helgar?” she added, looking around at Gríma.

“Over by the cart we were in this morning,” he replied, scrubbing one hand over his face, leaving track marks in the grime, “They’re both fine. Godric took a scythe to the knee early in the fight, but it was a clean cut and he didn’t lose the leg. He’ll be on light duty for the rest of the journey, though.”

“And Helgar?” Rowena asked, wincing again as black spots danced in front of her eyes. She kept her feet this time, though it was hard and she bit down on her tongue to keep from crying out from the pain.

“Just cuts and bruises. We were lucky,” he added, “I was knocked out pretty early on, but Helgar seems to have come through all right.”

Sigebald snorted. “Only you four would call that lucky,” he said. “I thought the West Country was decently safe from the raids.”

“It is,” Rowena replied, “What, did you think they were the only danger?” Fox Hollow had been many things but safe, she had to admit, had never been one of them. Sigebald’s face was a picture, and a rather alarming one, at that.

“Never mind,” he muttered, “I’m quite sure I don’t want to know what you madmen have been doing. Fighting dragons or some such nonsense, I suppose.”

“It was only ever one dragon,” Rowena said primly, “And it wasn’t _really_ fighting.”

Gríma snorted, but didn’t contradict her, which if anything only seemed to alarm Sigebald more. He fell into step on Rowena’s other side, not seeing the anxious looks Sigebald kept shooting at the pair of them, as though they might suddenly manifest teeth and claws and tear him to shreds.

Rowena looked over at Gríma. “And you’re sure they’re both all right?”

“As sure as I reasonably can be,” Gríma replied, sounding distinctly defensive now. “They were well enough to complain, so it can’t be that bad.”

“Do you know what,” Sigebald cut in, now looking faintly terrified, “I- I’d better take those,” he nodded at the bones, “To Merehwit so he can arrange a proper burial. I’ll, um, I’ll see you later,” he added, in tones which made it quite clear that he hoped very much that he would do no such thing.

Rowena frowned, stung. “Make sure you get the arm looked at,” she said sharply, glaring at him.

“I will, that is, I’ll try- I’m sure one of the healers can…well, I’ll just go and,” he gestured at the bones. “Get it over with, you know.”

Gríma snorted, and Rowena elbowed him, hard. Not that it did any good. Sigebald hurried away looking, if anything, even more nervous of the pair of them, and Rowena gave the thing up as a bad job.

“You didn’t have to tell him,” Gríma pointed out from beside her, close enough that she could lean on him when her vision contracted again with the pain in her arm.

“I know that,” Rowena muttered, and hated him a little for saying it. Why was it that Gríma was only ever _right_ about things when he could cause trouble by being so?

When they reached the cart, Godric was sitting up, grey-faced and sickly-looking but otherwise none the worse for wear. Rowena could not help sneaking a look at his leg, but though his leggings were stiff with blood from knee to ankle one one side and he held it gingerly, he didn’t seem so very badly off. He swore, loudly and improbably, at the sight of them.

“Tell me you at least got the bloke that did it,” he said, staring at her arm. Rowena shook her head, then nodded, not sure which of the dead men she had seen had taken the shot. She hadn’t set out to kill them, but they were dead now all the same, trampled or hit by others with far less scruples than she. She didn’t know if that made her a murderer. Then she remembered the young man by the sign of the Greyhound and had to breathe in heavily to keep from being sick. “Ro?” Godric asked, frowning, “Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m not,” Rowena snapped, as another dull, throbbing burst of pain ran through her, “Would _you_ be all right if _your_ arm was being perforated, Godric?”

He bridled, “I was just trying to- But if you’re going to be like that, fine!”

“Oh, go on, by all means!” Rowena snapped back, gritting her teeth against the pain, “What were you ‘just trying’? I can’t imagine you had anything particularly useful to say.”

Godric had gone very red now, she noticed dimly, and was opening his mouth to retort when Helga cut him off and started examining the arm.

“Hopeless, the pair of you,” she muttered, “Grím, could you give me a hand here? I need someone to hold her arm steady – sit down, will you?” she added, looking over at Rowena and elbowing Godric until he moved up, “I can’t work with you standing up, too much of a risk your knees’ll give out and I’ll end up tearing you up even more.” She grinned, and patted the straw next to her. “Come on, let’s see what the damage is, then.”

Reminding herself sharply that it was beneath her dignity to scowl and would only encourage the rest of them, Rowena sat down and presented her arm.

Helga winced. “How’d you manage to miss that, then?” she asked, “Hm. It’s not deep, at least, and nowhere you couldn’t afford a bit of damage, though you probably won’t feel much around there for the rest of your life, because a wound that size will have properly buggered up the nerves there.”

Gríma pressed a mostly-full bottle of something that smelt both alcoholic and faintly noxious into Rowena’s hands.

“Here,” he muttered, “You probably won’t want to be sober for this next bit.” He reached up to hold the arm in place, his fingers cold and ungentle.

Rowena took one cautious sip, and was wracked by spluttering, wracking coughs as the moonshine burnt its way down her gullet.

“That is _foul_ ,” she managed to get out after a few seconds of frantic hacking and choking. Godric snickered. Rowena tried to turn her head to glare at him, but Helga wouldn’t let her move. She was still poking around the arrow.

“You might want more of that soon, Ro,” she warned, drawing her knife from her belt and muttering a spell to clean it before making another incision. Rowena bit back a scream as Helga cut in, widening the wound around the arrow.

“Are you mental?” Godric yelped. “I thought you didn’t want to get her cut up any worse!”

Helga glared at him briefly before returning her attention to Rowena, slipping two freshly-cleaned fingers into the wound. Rowena couldn’t help the sound she made then, which she could not quite believe had come from any human throat, and took another gulp from the bottle. This time, the burn was much easier to take.

“Damn it,” Helga muttered, “It couldn’t have gone straight through, could it?”

“It’s not lodged in the bone, has it?” Gríma asked, looking distinctly worried now, his fingers digging into Rowena’s arm so hard it would have hurt if she hadn’t been in so much pain already.

Helga hissed in a breath through her teeth. “Let me see,” she muttered. “Nope. It’s nicked a vein, but that’ll heal up quick enough once I’ve got the arrowhead out.”

The next bit hurt even more, but once her vision cleared Rowena could see Helga holding the bloodstained arrow in her hand, which was now wrist-deep in gore once again, dripping down from her fingers. “There’s no splintering, as far as I can see,” Helga said, in a tone of some relief. “And now,” she put her wand to Rowena’s arm and began murmuring to herself, soft and strangely sing-song, in a language that was almost, but not quite, Welsh. A feeling like a drop of cold water trailing across the surface of the wound filled Rowena, making the sharp pain in her shoulder feel suddenly much smaller, almost insignificant.

Nearby, she could hear Godric saying to Gríma, sounding uncomfortably close to both awe and revulsion. “So, how many times did you two have to do this sort of thing back in Wales?”

“This would be the first time,” Gríma admitted, “We both saw Tilly – your Aunt Matilda – at it on a pretty regular basis, though, and Helga knows what she’s doing.”

Rowena tuned the conversation out, letting herself bask, however briefly, in the cool, comforting touch of the magic as it flowed through her. If asked to describe it, later, she couldn’t have put into words just what the healing felt like. Like a hot bath after a long day’s march, or like the chance to lie down somewhere in peace and quiet on a soft bed and let all her aches and pains fade away, except both of those things at once and a thousand more besides. And then, all at once, it was over and Rowena sat up, wincing at the pain in her arm.

“I can’t close it entirely,” Helga warned, looking pale and exhausted, “But it won’t get infected so long as you don’t pick at it.”

Rowena looked down at her arm, to see a dark scab against the skin, as though she’d only tripped and grazed her arm against something.

“Is there any reason why it’s still…” she saw the look on Helga’s face and hurried to correct herself, “Not that you haven’t done enough, I was just wondering…”

“I could’ve done,” Helga admitted, “But not on top of everything else. It takes a lot out of you, healing magic.”

Rowena frowned. “Is it…some kind of exchange?” she posited, “To restore other people’s health, you have to sacrifice your own. Is that it?”

“Might be,” Helga admitted, rubbing at her face, “Mum always said never to do too much in one go, or too many injuries in quick succession.” She grinned. “I suppose that’ll be something for you to look into.”

Rowena nodded, sitting up a little straighter and feeling rather more surprised than was probably good for her to find that the world had stopped going black and blurry at the edges. She handed the bottle back to Gríma, who nodded, apparently too worn out to speak.

“You’d think we’d be used to this sort of thing by now,” he said at last. “I can’t remember the last time we were able to go more than a few weeks without some kind of disaster.”

Godric snorted. “It’s probably you,” he said, nudging Gríma companionably, “I’ve never met anyone who attracts as much trouble as you do.”

“It’s not my fault,” Gríma snapped, looking sullen and ill-at-ease. “I don’t go looking for any of it!”

“No-one said you did,” Helga returned coolly. “So please stop jumping down all our throats.”

Gríma scrubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry,” he muttered, “I’m just-” he shook his head, looking exhausted. “All of you at least got to help with the defences. Me, I get knocked out before I even know we’re _being_ attacked.”

“You’d think that would make a nice change,” Rowena said, shaking her head. “You are the only person I’ve ever met who’d complain about not having to fight for their life.”

Godric snorted, and Rowena felt herself relax.

The wagons started moving again about an hour later, by which time Helga had been called back on duty, as the only one of them who wasn’t still dizzy from blood loss, concussion, or both. The rest of them had been warned sharply not to expect much more, and that they’d be on the evening watch that night, except for Gríma, who would probably join them anyway. Already they were leaving the border forest behind as the mountains rose up before them. Rowena watched them approach, trying to remember the faces of the men who had attacked her and coming up with nothing. How many deaths was she responsible for now, she wondered. She thought of the rust-encrusted scythes the bandits had wielded, the starved, feral look in her attacker’s eyes. She could not help wondering who they had been, and whether there was another woman out there now who was waiting for one of them to come home to her. It was an awful feeling, but it did not subside, even as the day wore on and the shadows lengthened into dusk.


	6. Part 1, Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was originally meant to be a standalone interlude for Helga, but it started to overrun, so I've split it in two.

“So, that’s it,” Rickon said, looking out at the castle on the hill, its high wooden bailey circled around with high wooden walls, sitting serenely in the middle of the frozen lake, only a narrow causeway connecting it back to the shore. At the end of the causeway, a sea of tents spread out across the valley in a rainbow of brilliant colours, like a small city glistening against the snow. They’d be shabby when the convoy got closer, patched and leaking and unimpressive close to, but Helga couldn’t bring herself to care. They had made it! At last, they were there. Helga stared out over the tents, and could hear her heart thumping in her ears. Inside a week, she’d have a trade to her name, but whether it would be the one she wanted was anyone’s guess. It felt like stepping off a cliff, to see the tents spread out and know there was no going back.

“It doesn’t look like anything that special to me,” Gríma said, and the moment was broken. Helga snorted with laughter, and elbowed him hard in the side, the same way that, when they were children, she’d have tackled him to the ground for a play-fight, the two of them half-laughing and half-snarling as each of them tried to find a way to pin the other, causing no end of trouble in the process. It felt strange, remembering those play-fights now, the way they all seemed to blur into one long childhood scuffle, such that the only way to tell who it was she was brawling with at any given time was whether they had red hair or black. It felt wrong, like poking your tongue into the gap of a loose tooth, only to find the old tooth there again, just as it had been and as if it had never been gone at all. It was almost familiar, that feeling, and brought back memories of the choking dark, all those long months of hardly knowing from one minute to the next where she was or what she had been doing. She shook herself, hard, trying to dislodge the memory of cold dark eyes and a soft, terrible purring voice, and did her best to think of other things.

“How long do you think it’ll be before we get there?” Rowena asked from up ahead next to Rickon.

Helga shrugged, then remembered Ro wasn’t looking at her and cut in, “It’ll probably be late tonight, after they’ve closed up,” she said, lengthening her stride to draw level with them, “We’re lucky, a lot of them look like they’ve stayed on to pick up latecomers.”

“That’s something, then!” Rickon said, excited now. “I mean, the really great knights aren’t just going to go for the first kid who happens along, are they?”

“No,” Rowena admitted, sounding dubious, “But- Well, they’re probably not going to take just anyone…”

Rickon, of course, took the bait. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded, rounding on her.

“Just that- Well, you must know-” Rowena’s hands twisted guiltily in her lap, chapped and red-raw where they had been smooth only weeks ago, and she looked slightly apologetic as she went on. “Father always said the best knights would have their eye on possible squires from the moment they entered page’s training, and you, well…” she broke off, flushing slightly in the face of Rickon’s downcast look. “I mean, I’m sure you’ll get a place,” she added, “I’ve seen you with a quarterstaff, and you’re as likely to be good as it as anyone once you’re caught up, just…don’t get your hopes up _too_ far and turn someone down because they’re not as impressive as you’d hoped for.”

“Yeah, right,” Rickon muttered, looking distinctly downcast. Wonderful. He’d be sulking for at least another hour, which was at least quiet, if nowhere near as entertaining as those two’s rows could be when they really got into it. Cerridwen’s teats, but she’d been bored on the road, if even Ro and Rickon’s mind-numbingly predictable bouts of bickering could now be considered entertainment.

Next to her Gríma, who had caught up with the rest of them now and was starting to look distinctly annoyed, heard her snort and elbowed her in the ribs.

“Sorry you’re missing the joke?” she asked, nudging him straight back, “It wasn’t much of one anyway. Just more proof – as if we needed any – of just how bored I’ve been since we joined up here.”

“I’d take bored over the sort of excitement we were getting before that,” he pointed out in a low voice.

Helga huffed at him, “Like you’re any better off, Grím. Admit it, you’ve been bored rigid. I know I have. And if Rowena starts in on ‘the active mind can amuse itself’ _one_ more time…” That startled an actual laugh out of Gríma, which caught the others’ attention.

Rickon glared at the pair of them, still looking distinctly sullen. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Gríma said quickly, which of course only made matters worse. Even Rowena looked sceptical of that one.

“Well, nothing much,” Helga added, smiling insouciantly up at them. “I was hoping we’d get another bandit attack, just to liven things up a bit around here.”

Rickon snorted. “Yeah, that’s just what we need. More work.” His eyes flicked over to Rowena, whose shoulder still pained her in the wet, and then away again just as quickly, as though embarrassed by his own concern for her.

“Hurry up there!” someone shouted from close by, and they sprung apart, the four of them, and hurried off to attend to their various tasks. Truth be told, it was an easy day. The last day of the journey, within sight of the fairgrounds themselves, and no-one was in the mood to do much work. Across on the far side of the convoy, Helga could hear three or four of the other guards singing loudly, bawdily and dreadfully off-key the old saw about the four-and-twenty virgins, the goat and the lovelorn swineherd. She hummed along as best she could, though she knew her voice was nothing special.

“Oh, thank the gods, you’re here!” came a call from nearby, and Helga turned to see one of the better-off carters, a matronly-looking woman slightly younger than Helga’s own mother would be by now whom Helga had seen fussing over Sigebald a few days earlier, bustling over. “Helgar, isn’t it?”

“What is it?” Helga asked, frowning.

The woman’s hands fluttered round her apron as she explained. “It’s- It’s a dreadful shame, but one of the horses has thrown a shoe and I need help getting her unhitched so as I can get one of the smiths to see to her, but with Sigebald – my nephew, you know –  still recovering I can’t do it all by myself.”

“What do you need me to do?” Helga asked, wiping her hands on her tunic, “And what about the cart? Will you be able to manage with just one horse?”

The woman waved a hand. “Oh, it’s one of the sleeping-carts, so there’s naught but hay in there now. We’ll be fine with one horse, long as we’re careful to go slowly and by tonight we’ll be stopped anyway so it’ll be fine till then. I just need someone to help me get Bramble unhitched so I can tether her to the back.”

Helga nodded. “That’s all right, then.” She glanced around. “Which cart is it?”

“Over here,” the woman said eagerly, and now Helga remembered her name, Eed. The cart was down in the middle of the convoy, with all the other sleeping-carts. It was one of the better-appointed ones, with a heavy canvas cover spelled against the damp and soft, dry hay inside, and the two horses who drew it, while old, fat and slow-moving, had glossy coats and were clearly very well cared-for.

“This here’s Bramble,” Eed said, patting the more sprightly-looking of the two horses affectionately. The mare nickered, and nosed at her mistress’s arm, earning her a laugh and a stroke from Eed. “I’ll hold her, if you’ll get her unhitched.” Helga nodded, and settled to her task as Eed went on. “Been on this route fifteen years now,” she remarked, “M’husband doesn’t like it, o’ course, but what man does? Says I should be home with our boys, but they’re all grown now and anyway, what’s going to keep us if I do? It’s all very well him saying it shames us for me to be bringing in coin, but who else is going to do it, there’s what I want to know?”

“Sounds very silly of him,” Helga agreed, cursing as her fingers slipped, still stiff with cold.

Een clucked her tongue. “Well, you’re a sensible lad,” she said meditatively, looking at Helga speculatively from underneath her eyelids, as though she were a horse at market. “You don’t do the same, d’you hear me? Pride’s all very well for them as can afford it, but not for the likes of you and me.”

Helga bit back a snicker. “I’ll do my best to remember that,” she said, straight-faced, as she finally managed to unhitch Bramble, who stood there placidly, munching away at the oats in her nosebag, her great dark eyes blank and calm.

“See that you do,” Eed warned, accepting the leading-rein from Helga with a nod of thanks. She patted Helga’s cheek and smiled at her. “You’re a good lad. You’ll do well – what sort of berth is it you’re looking for, then?”

“Blacksmithing,” Helga replied, straightening. “Something that’ll let me use my runes if I can find it, but I’ll take anything that comes up.”

“Ah, well. It’s a steady trade, that.” Eed adjusted her grip on Bramble’s halter rope and smiled at Helga. “Well, thanks for that,” she remarked, patting Helga on the shoulder and letting her hand linger a few seconds longer than seemed really necessary. “Shame you’re not staying on as guard, but most of you youngsters aren’t. Still, if the blacksmithing doesn’t work out for you…” she gestured at the cart and smiled. “It’d do me good to have some young blood around, and it gets cold of nights.” The look she gave Helga then was uncomfortably familiar, and Helga suppressed a groan. Not another one. Now she noticed it, Eed’s ample chest was pushed all the way out, and one wouldn’t need two people to unhitch a horse as gentle as Bramble seemed to be.

“Not my sort of thing, I don’t think,” she replied, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’ll think about it, but,” she shrugged, “If it comes to it I can always go home. Mam always said I’d do well as a healer, and it’s not as though I haven’t picked up a bit of experience since I left.” There. Hopefully that should be enough to put her off. Gods be good, Eed was old enough to be her mother! And it was Helgar she was interested in, not Helga.

“I’d better go,” she said quickly, “I’m supposed to be on watch right now.”

Eed clucked her tongue. “Again? My word, but they keep you trotting.” She smiled, “Well, run along then, but, ah, if you’ve a mind to it,” she added, giving Helga another of those speculative horse-merchant’s looks, “You’d be welcome to a place in my cart tonight.”

Helga nodded, not quite trusting herself to reply without laughing, and hurried off. From there, of course, it was one task after another as Ranulf called her over to take over his watch while he reported back to Hafwen, another of the carters towards the back of the convoy asked her to help him with a stuck wheel and then Glaedwine wanted her to join the rest of the guards in circling the carts ready for their entry into the fairgrounds themselves, the protective charms stretching a good half-mile around the edges of the fair itself. Helga heard the moment they breached the charms as a great cheer came up from the front of the convoy as they broke through. They had made it! The excitement was tangible as they carried on, and even Helga found herself relaxing. These last few weeks had been harder than she had realised, and now, with no threat of bandits and every likelihood of a hot meal and an extra ration of beer that night at supper, she couldn’t help the way her spirits lifted.

It was very nearly dark by the time they reached the fringes of the fair itself, and the tents looked poor and shabby this close to, but still Helga couldn’t quite stop herself from grinning as she stacked rather soggy hay bales back into a cart, only half-listening to the squabble between the carter and a pack of would-be apprentices over which of them was responsible for the cart being overturned in the first place. The exact chain of events which had led to it being overturned were fast becoming so convoluted that Helga could scarcely follow them, and that was without the idiot in the brown tunic who looked like his head had been thatched, who seemed to think that the louder he said something, the more true it became. It didn’t seem to be working out terribly well for him. Still, for the most part the convoy was quiet in the fading dusk as Helga finished up her task and left the carter to his quarrelling. She picked her way through the gathering dark, keeping an eye out for the others, until she spotted a familiar wild mop of brown curls by one of the smaller campfires.

Rickon looked up as she approached. “You took your time,” he commented. “Get into any trouble?”

“No more than you usually do,” Helga returned, collapsing next to Rowena, who pressed a trencher of toasted cheese into her hands. “Thanks, Ro,” she added, tearing into the rough bread with a hunger she hadn’t quite realised she felt until then. “Gods, I’ll be glad to get away from all this.”

“Eed make a pass at you too, did she?” Rowena asked, in a distinctly frosty tone of voice.

Helga blinked. “What- Yes, she did. How did you know?”

“Because,” Gríma said, in the sort of tone of malicious relish most often heard among siblings, “She went after Godric about an hour ago. Something about her mare, I think,”

“She wanted it hitched up to the cart again,” Rickon muttered, turning an ugly red. “I didn’t know what she was about until after.”

Rowena gave a low, disgusted huff and Helga shook her head. “Well, she’s pawed at every other guard she’s got within arm’s length of, so why should we be any different?” she remarked, almost smirking. “I thought Ranulf was exaggerating about her.”

“You must make an uncommonly pretty boy,” Gríma remarked, keeping his voice carefully level, but even so she could hear the laughter behind the words. Helga ran a hand over her shorn scalp and smiled to herself, glad for the first time that he couldn’t see her as she was now, with her rough hands and the cuts around her ears where Rowena’s hands had slipped while shearing her.

“I’m serviceable enough,” she agreed, “When I’m not covered in hay and so frozen I could be a tomato except for the nose.”

“What’s a tomato?” Gríma asked, frowning. And Helga, racking her brains, found that she had no idea either.

“Um…some kind of fruit, I think,” Rowena tried, “Unless it’s a vegetable...reddish…or greenish…” she shook her head. “But- I don’t ever remember hearing of them before, so why I know that is beyond me.”

Rickon snorted. “Mental, the lot of you,” he said, taking another draught of beer.

“It’s not like it matters anyway,” Helga said irritably, and licked the last crumbs of cheese and dry bread from her fingers, trying to dismiss the feeling that she was missing something.

“That reminds me,” Rowena said presently, sitting up straighter, “I think we should all meet up as soon as any of us have found a position, so we know where to write.” Gríma shifted awkwardly, the way he always did when his illiteracy was brought up in conversation, and Rowena reached out to catch him by the arm, “Grím, you will get someone to read our letters, won’t you? Someone you can trust, I mean.”

“If I can find one,” Gríma muttered, sounding distinctly morose now. “Not looking terribly likely, is it?”

“No more unlikely than our getting here in the first place, after we lost the horses,” Rickon pointed out bracingly. “Face it, mate, when you’re not attracting trouble you’ve got the luck of the gods for slithering out of it again.”

Gríma huffed, but didn’t speak again, taking another long pull of beer and wincing a little at the taste.

 “Grím,” Rowena started, reaching over to catch his wrist, but Gríma pulled away.

“You don’t need to coddle me,” he said shortly, “I’ll be fine.” He glowered down in the vague direction of his boots, looking about as far from fine as it was possible to be.

Rowena glanced over at them, but Helga couldn’t think of anything that would shake Gríma out of himself when he was in this sort of mood, and didn’t much feel like it right now anyway. He’d be insufferable until the fair was over, most likely, however things fell out.

“It’ll be strange, being away from the rest of you,” Rickon remarked, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I mean, it’s been five years now since we’ve been apart for more than a week or so, and that was pretty rare anyway.”

“I daresay we’ll cope,” Helga replied, taking another gulp from her mug. “It’ll be murder getting my hands on an owl to deliver it, though. I suppose my apprentice-master might have one, but if he doesn’t I’ll either have to get my own or pay through the nose for a public bird.” It would just be humiliating to have to keep the others’ birds until she could finish a letter, even if her master, whoever he was, would let her.

“I’ll be using ravens, probably,” Rowena admitted, shrugging, “That’s what’s usual for a wizarding convent, isn’t it? Agnes said it was, anyway, and I don’t think things will have changed so very much since her day…”

“A convent?” Rickon asked, and it was all Helga could do not to laugh at the look on his face. It was the sort of expression that made you wish there was some way of freezing that moment in time, folding it up and tucking it away to take out again when you needed a good laugh. Gríma owed her a drink, it would seem, he’d sworn that her cousin had no more idea of how obviously gone on Rowena he was than Rowena did herself.

“Yes, that’s right,” Ro replied, quite oblivious. It was almost funny, really, watching those two. Well, when it wasn’t either frustrating or just plain sad, anyway. She glanced over at Gríma, half-expecting the nudge in the ribs which was as near as they could come to catching one another’s eyes, but he was still staring into the depths of his mug, looking so miserable it was difficult to remember what the joke had been.

“You- You’re not staying on, are you?” Rickon asked, sounding really quite alarmed now.

Rowena shrugged. “I might,” she said, “Why? It’s not as though I’m ever likely to marry, is it?”

The noise Rickon made at that was such that you had to hear it to believe it, and even then Helga was a bit dubious that it had come from a human throat at all. “What,” he exclaimed, “Never?”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Rowena asked, in a distinctly frosty tone of voice. “You think just because I’m a girl I have to want marriage?”

“What- No- I just-” Rickon flushed again, deeper, his ears going an ugly, blotchy red that spread across the rest of his face like a rash. “I just sort of figured- I mean, we’d never get to see you again, would we? Not after you took your vows, I mean. I know you’re allowed to leave before that, for holidays and so on-”

“Do you?” Rowena asked, startled, “How do you know that? You couldn’t in a Muggle abbey,”

Helga caught Rickon’s eye and smirked. “Mam and Auntie Ag were in one together,” she explained, stretching both arms up above her head, “This was before Mam got herself in the family way the first time and got thrown out for her trouble. And,” she added, casting a faintly malicious glance Rickon’s way, “Before Auntie Ag’s betrothal.”

It did not have the desired effect. Her cousin went from dispirited to positively cheerful almost obnoxiously fast – taking altogether too much for granted, in Helga’s opinion. That was at least enough to jolt Gríma out of his funk enough for him to manage a half-stifled chuckle badly disguised as a cough.

“Yeah,” Rickon added, looking all of a sudden almost buoyant, “I mean, it’s not permanent until you’ve actually sworn to it, and until then you can leave for the festivals – we could all meet up at Yule, if we liked.”

“It’d be nice to have an excuse to see each other,” Rowena agreed, smiling now. “Do all magical abbeys allow novices that much freedom, though?”

“Don’t know,” Rickon replied, rubbing his nose. “But you’ll have your pick of places anyway come morning, so it can’t matter that much.”

Rowena went pink, but looked, Helga thought, quite pleased. She was the only one. Of the four of them, Helga thought, it would be Rowena who’d get all she wanted out of life. How could she not? She was talented, brilliant, driven…and, perhaps most importantly, the only one of them who had aspirations in any way in proportion to her circumstances. Helga smiled cynically to herself. The rest of them had been dependent on their letters of recommendation to win them places. Rowena…well, what she lacked in raw power she made up for with skill that far outstripped the rest of them, and she was nobility. A magbob, as well, which made it more and more likely that she’d be lucky not to be snapped up by some enterprising convent almost as soon as she let it be known she was looking for a place. Everyone knew that magbobs had powers beyond the ordinary – that was why the results were always so terrible when one of them went bad. There wasn’t a master out there who wouldn’t give their eye-teeth for a student like Rowena, and every one of them knew it. Helga met Godric’s eyes across the fire, but for once there was no hint of resentment in his face.

“As for the rest of us,” she put in, “Well, if I can’t find a place as a blacksmith, there’s probably some herb-woman or other prepared to teach me a bit. It’s not perfect, but…” she shrugged and let it lie.

“It’s good to have a back-up plan,” Rowena agreed, looking slightly and unjustifiably nervous and casting a glance at Gríma, who was still sitting there like a stump, apparently trying to sink into the snow and disappear. “I suppose if no-one will take me I can find menial work. I know I can sew well enough, if it comes to that. What about you, Godric?”

Gríma made a soft, derisive, disgusted noise, and Rowena rounded on him. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, her patience apparently entirely exhausted.

“It’s all very well for you, isn’t it,” Gríma snapped back, sullen now. “You turn up at any of the bidding-platforms and you’ll have every abbey in the country clamouring for you. And the rest of you,” he added, hunching his shoulders. “It might not be what you wanted, but it’ll still be a position. Me-” he shook his head, more miserable than Helga had ever seen him.

“That’s just silly,” she said hotly, “We’d all help if you couldn’t find a place, you know. As best we could, I mean. What, did you think we’d just leave you to starve?”

“No,” Gríma muttered, “Of course not. Not as though I could ever stand on my own, is it? Can’t so much as take a step without someone or other worrying over whether it’s too much for me, can I?”

“Grím, mate,” Rickon started, frowning at him, “How much ale have you had?”

Gríma snorted. “Does it matter?” he asked, and now she knew what to look for Helga could see the signs – his eyes were over-bright, his face flushed from more than just the heat of the fire. “It’s not as though it’s anything but the truth.” He took another gulp of ale, his tongue flicking out to catch the last beads of dark liquid from the rim.

“Gríma,” Rowena said carefully, “Perhaps you should stop now. It’s  an early start tomorrow, and the last thing you’re going to need is a pounding headache when you’re going around the stalls tomorrow.”

Gríma scowled. “Not like there’s much point, is there?” he said dully, “It’s not as though anyone’s going to want to take on a blind peasant as an apprentice – and a _fenlander_ , at that,” he almost spat, the tension in his shoulders wound up so tightly now that it seemed just inches away from snapping-point.

The rest of them shared a significant look. What could they say to that, Helga wondered. He wasn’t wrong. Of all of them, Gríma’s future was the most uncertain, and they all knew how slim the chance was of his ever being able to find a place which would accept him. It wouldn’t matter to an apprentice-master that Gríma was quicker with a wand than any of them, or that he knew more about Dark creatures than all three of them put together. Only that he was small, and blind, and fen-born, and sometimes needed help, even if he’d never admit it.

“You could try not to make it _too_ obvious,” Rowena suggested awkwardly, “I mean, I know you can navigate well enough when you have to, and if you just don’t mention it…”

“Too obvious?” Gríma repeated, “How’s anyone supposed to miss it, Rowena?” He drained his mug, and set it down, shoulders slumping. “Even if I managed it at first, I couldn’t keep it up indefinitely, and then what?”

“Grím-” Rowena started, sounding sympathetic again now. Not the best tack to take, Helga thought. And, sure enough, there was Gríma pulling away.

“I’m going to bed,” he muttered, shrugging off Rowena’s hand on his shoulder and sloping off into the dark.

Rickon shook his head. “He didn’t mean it,” he assured Rowena, who looked worried, “He’s just drunk and depressed, it doesn’t mean anything. And even if he doesn’t find a place – well, it’s not as though any of us is going to leave him, is it?”

“I don’t know,” Rowena said, and shook her head. “Let’s not talk about him. If he wants to take it out on us, that’s his decision. What were you thinking of if you can’t get a squire’s position?”

“I don’t know,” Rickon muttered, his ears going red. “I mean, I’m not really good at anything-”

It took a colossal effort of will for Helga to keep from rolling her eyes at that, or at Rowena’s increasingly indignant attempts to convince Rickon that claiming he wasn’t good at anything wasn’t helping his case any, which of course only made Rickon blush more.

“Well, there’s always the sellsword companies,” he tried in the end, apparently only to shut Rowena up. “I mean, I’m not useless in a fight.” This last with a tone of challenge, as though daring them to disagree with him.

“No-one ever said you were,” Rowena replied, frowning. “I suppose, as a last resort that’s not too bad. It’d suit you. Not as well as being a knight, I mean,” she added hastily, “And it’s not exactly an honourable trade, but given what I’ll be doing if I can’t find a place-”

“As if that’s ever likely to happen,” Helga interjected, rolling her eyes. “I might go to bed myself, if you were serious about that early start tomorrow. Especially as we’re not even getting paid for all this.”

Rowena nodded, “That’s an idea, actually,” she said, sounding surprised, but rather pleased. It was almost insulting, really. “We probably should.”

“Give it a few minutes,” Rickon said hastily, “Let’s- Let’s just finish the ale first. Don’t want to waste it.”

*

The morning came in dull and dispiriting, a fall of cold sleet waking them in the dim grey hours before dawn. All around, in the other, covered carts, their fellows were sleeping still, apparently heedless of the terrible chill in the air.

“Anyone seen my cap?” Helga asked as she dragged herself, her joints protesting all the way, to her feet.

“Here,” muttered Gríma, groping around in the straw until he found it and holding it out. “Unless it’s Godric’s.”

“Thanks,” Helga muttered, taking it, and wondering whether a hood would’ve kept the cold out better, or at least stopped her ears from freezing. They still had a very little money left, from before they had signed on as guards, so there was that at least, but it was the very devil to decide how to split three halfpennies between four people. In the end they compromised by splitting the halfpennies, giving them six farthings between them, which was at least easier to distribute even if no-one was sure who should get the two left over and so they were left in the shared purse to be shared to whichever of them was going to be staying on longest at the fair. It was only lucky that the rules of the fair prohibited forcing people to pay to be apprenticed, and had done since ancient times. If it had been any other way, Helga’s cause would’ve been lost before it was even begun. Now, at least, she had a chance. The fairground itself was still mostly empty, still setting up, and the mud was churned up and flattened from days of being walked on, the snow that had appeared pristine the previous afternoon now revealed for the filthy slush it really was.

“I can’t believe this,” Rickon muttered, “We could’ve had another hour or two’s sleep and not missed anything.”

“Like we’d have been able to, in this,” Helga replied, tugging her cloak up to cover her neck better against the thickening sleet. “C’mon, let’s see if there’s anywhere under cover.”

As it happened, there were a couple of tents set up by enterprising merchants who knew well enough how awful the weather could get and that, under such circumstances, all that most people wanted was just to get out of the wind. That saw for the extra two farthings, even if they’d be able to come in and out all day, and if things got much worse they’d be running odd jobs to pay their way once again.

“Just once,” Rowena said irritably as they sat down at one of the long, rough-hewn trestle tables, waiting for the first stalls to open and gnawing on the dry bread and hard cheese that had been all Rowena was able to scavenge for them at the camp, “I’d like to be able to take a journey without spending most of it running other people’s errands for them.”

“We could all do with that,” Gríma agreed, sounding worn-down but at least less sullen than he had been the previous evening. He raked a hand through his hair, which had grown out shaggy and more unruly than ever since they had joined the convoy, “Can any of you make a guess at the time?”

“Early,” Helga replied, nudging him. “Does it matter?” Knowing the time wouldn’t make the stalls and booths open any earlier, and if he kept asking Helga was going to have to hex something. Probably him.

“It would be nice to know how long we’ve got,” Rowena put in, looking around the tent, where the first people were just starting to drift in – mostly tent-holders, Helga thought, or those lucky buggers who had already found positions but whose masters were still looking out for more prospects. The younger people looked too sure of themselves to be from any of the convoys camped out around the fairgrounds, which was at least something. “It can’t be too long, if all these people are in here.”

“Why are they in here?” Rickon asked, frowning, “They’ve all got tents of their own to go to, haven’t they?”

Helga frowned, “Maybe it’s like the main hall at Auntie Ag’s place,” she suggested, “I mean, technically everyone could’ve eaten in their own rooms, but then you wouldn’t be able to talk to each other.”

“Makes sense,” Rickon agreed, “Still, they’ll be opening up soon, then, won’t they?” He glanced around, and frowned. “Not many knights, though, aren’t there?”

“None whatsoever, by the look of it,” Helga said, frowning around. “Do you think they’ve all gone home?”

Gríma nodded. “I certainly can’t see any,” he added. Helga reached over and cuffed him lightly around the back of the head, but she couldn’t help but laugh.

“They’re probably in their own tents,” Rowena said, folding her hands in front of her, “Most of these people,” she nodded at the nearest group to them, “Are traders or craftsmen of some form, by the look of them. There aren’t any representatives from the abbeys here either. I suppose their rules don’t allow them to mix.”

“And that’s what you want to do with your life?” Rickon asked, incredulous. Gríma nudged Helga in the side and she winced.

Rowena fixed Rickon with a stern look. “It might be,” she said haughtily, “What is it to you?”

“What- I’m your _friend_ , R’ena!” Rickon spluttered, “D’you really want to spend your whole life shut up like that?”

“And what other option do I have?” Rowena snapped. “It’s this or marry, and at least in a convent I’ll be able to carry on my studies.” She folded her arms, staring out across the tent. “It shouldn’t be half as bad as you’re thinking, and we’ll still be able to see each other occasionally until I take my vows.”

“And after that?” Helga asked, her heart in her throat. Rowena didn’t reply, but her silence was answer enough. None of them really felt much like talking after that, as the drizzle petered out outside the tent and the crowd of potential masters ebbed away to get set up.

“We’ll need a place to meet,” Helga said at last, if only to break the silence. “Will here do, do you think? We’re paid up for the rest of the day.”

“And tomorrow?” Gríma asked.

Rickon shrugged, “Maybe we’ll all find places before that,” he suggested. Gríma snorted, but mercifully didn’t say anything. Helga gritted her teeth. She was being unfair to him, probably. His birth and his blindness did cut him off from so many of the opportunities the rest of them took for granted. But he wasn’t a fool, he’d known as much all his life, and she’d never seen him indulge in self-pity to this extent before. She couldn’t say it was a development she liked.

When they finally stepped out into the fairground again, the sun was just starting to show through the crowds, casting a dim, watery sort of light over the tents, most of which now had their entrances tied open or camp stools outside them so that their owners could watch the potentials. Helga’s stomach turned over. If even one of these people realised the truth, all her hopes would be over.

“Should we split up?” Rowena asked, glancing around. “Does- Will everyone be all right on their own?”

Gríma snorted, “I made my way across most of England on my own when I was a kid,” he reminded her irritably, “ _Without_ anyone to hold my hand and fuss whenever I tripped over something. I can manage one fairground.”

Helga gave him a sidelong look. “That’s not the way I remember it,” she murmured, but Gríma had already stalked off, the effect only slightly ruined by his nearly tripping over a guy rope as he rounded the corner and cursing under his breath.

“Who spat in his porridge?” Rickon wondered aloud, sharing an exasperated look with Rowena.

Helga snorted. “Gods alone know,” she replied. “If either of you wants me, I’ll be at the eastern end – Auntie Ag says that’s where the craftsmen always are.”

“Right,” Rowena replied, and looked around, “She didn’t have anything to say about the abbeys, did she?” she added, half in jest.

Helga frowned, “Um…north, I think it was,” she offered, frowning, “They tend to keep themselves to themselves, and she never really had all that much interest, so I’m not really sure.”

“Oh.” Rowena glanced around, worry flashing across her features. “Well, I’d better go and see...” she looked down at herself, then reached up to tug off her cap, running her fingers through her curls and adjusting her tunic slightly. Nerves, Helga thought. It was difficult to imagine, but then, Rowena had never had the same faith in her own brilliance as the rest of them did. Helga opened her mouth, not quite sure what to say by way of reassurance, but Rickon beat her to it.

“You’ll be fine,” he said brusquely, “Just you wait, they’ll be burning each other to the ground for a chance to have you.”

Rowena actually blushed at that, much to Helga’s disgust. “Go on,” she said, giving Rowena a little push in the direction of the tents, “Before they have to throw out some other poor unfortunate to fit you in.”

Rowena flashed a smile at her, clearly nervous but trying her best not to show it, and hurried off in the direction of the castle. Rickon stared after her for a while, then looked around.

“So, this is it, then?” he asked.

Helga snorted. “Don’t make it sound as though you’ll be getting rid of me, I’ll write every other week.”

“Yeah, but…I mean…it’s all going to change now, isn’t it?” Rickon scuffed a foot along the ground, staring down. “R’ena’s running off to join a convent, you’re going to be a blacksmith, and gods alone know what Grím and I are going to end up doing with ourselves.”

“Oh, for-” Helga rolled her eyes, and pulled her idiot cousin into a hug. “Things were going to change whatever we did,” she said brusquely when she drew away, “And you wouldn’t want to stay a ninth son at Fox Hollow forever, would you?”

Rickon shook his head, still obviously uncomfortable. “No,” he said determinedly, setting his jaw like a fighting dog. “Thanks, Helga.”

“You’re welcome.” Helga looked around, “I’ll see you this evening, then.”

“All right.”


	7. Part 1, Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here's the other half.

The craftsmen’s tents were plainer than the pavilions of the knights to the west or the wealthier abbeys, but no less colourful for that. It was always the way with wizards, Helga reflected wryly. The moment they got together, no-one could resist showing off. She’d passed three tents now with wells outside them, and twice as many with attached signposts, weathervanes and, in one notable instance, a small garden stretching out next to a battered green tent which seemed to belong to some kind of herbalist or healer. It wasn’t hard for her to find the blacksmiths’ section, all she had to do was follow the noise of ringing hammers, the smell of smoke and horses, and look for the sign of the anvil on the signposts, which towered over the tents, so brightly painted they were almost gaudy in the dull grey light of morning.

“Farriers,” she muttered, glancing at the anvil and horseshoe painted on the nearest sign and scanning those further away, “Coppersmiths, silversmiths, tinkers…” None of them held her interest for long, though. The ironworkers’ section was the largest of all, the blood-red anvil on the boss that topped each signpost making that quite clear for all to see. Some of them had other signs above them – horseshoes for farriers, helmets for armourers, and a plough for ordinary village smiths. The signs themselves were great wooden things like inn-signs, painted with the maker’s marks of their smiths – there was a white horse prancing on one, a pair of crossed swords outside an armourer’s tent, a seven-pointed star beneath the sign of a farrier.

“You looking for someone, lad?” came a rough, kind voice from nearby, and Helga wheeled around, to see one of the smiths peering out at her with an assessing eye, the plough on the top of his tent-sign marking him out as an all-purpose blacksmith, one of the hundreds who plied their trade in one particular village and seldom, if ever, left it.

“Yea-” Helga swallowed, hearing how high her own voice sounded, and pitched it lower as she continued, “Yeah, I’m looking for a place.”

The smith gave her a brisk once-over. “Hmm,” he said, frowning behind his whiskers, “You’re small for it. Any experience?”

“A little, sir,” Helga lied. Truth be told, she’d hardly done more than hold the horses for the local blacksmith in the summers back in Wales. It hadn’t been hard work, but it had earned her a couple of farthings whenever she did it, and that was enough for her.

“Hmph,” the old blacksmith growled, “I don’t normally take apprentices who’ve already had a bit of training. Lot of bad habits to unlearn, and precious little time to do it in.”

Helga scowled, “It was only a little,” she said petulantly, “Don’t think I’ve developed any habits that need unlearning yet.”

“They never do,” the blacksmith replied irritably. “Doesn’t stop ‘em from blundering about my smithy like a bull in a potions-room. Know any runes?” he barked.

“Yes!” Helga said, glad to have found something, at least, that was true. “I’m- My aunt taught me the basics,” she admitted. She’d only been studying runes for a year now, though, and she was still only at the very beginning, though she could read and write perfectly well in the old Roman letters, and count with them as well.

“Good,” the man nodded. “Not as much call for it in village smithing as the fancy weapon-making stuff, but a useful trade to have.” He nodded. “You’ll do well enough, if you’ve a mind for it. My last apprentice left me a year ago, shiftless layabout that he was, and I’ve found no-one to replace him since. It’s good work, if you’ve a mind to it.”

“What sort of work is it you’re getting?” Helga asked.

The smith shrugged, “Ordinary sort of stuff. Broken ploughshares, pots, cauldrons…farrier’s work, when there’s a call for it. If anyone needs it, we’ll probably do it.” Maybe he saw the disappointment on her face, because he snorted, “’Course, you wouldn’t be interested in that,” he said sourly. “No-one gives a damn about solid smithing and hard work at these places.”

“I’ll work as hard as anyone, if I like what I’m working towards,” Helga said hotly, that streak of devilment in her nature that her aunt had always disapproved of springing up again, “I just-” she broke off. What could she say to him? She wanted to make things. Was that so strange? That had been what drew her to the trade in the first place, the chance to make something that would endure, something beautiful, something wonderful. To see the world, too, if she could, or at least a bit of it. None of that could be done if she was tied to one village all her life.

“You just. Of course.” The smith waved her away, “Go on, then. Offer’s still open if you don’t find what ‘you just’.” He shook his head, a muscle going in his cheek, and Helga went.

She avoided the village smiths after that, but the next four stalls were about as little use. She was too old, too small, too weedy, too much of a hothead to be trusted in a forge. No matter what she claimed, how far she might stretch the truth, she had either too much experience in a forge and would need to unlearn everything or else knew too little and would be too much trouble to train up.

This next tent didn’t look so very much better, and she didn’t recognise the sign on the boss at the top of the signpost outside – the anvil was there, on the golden-yellow background that clearly indicated a city artisan, but above it there was no plough, no helm, no horseshoe but a pair of crossed wands. The emblem on the actual sign, which swung now in the stiff winds from the east, showed a golden cup overflowing with water. Still, any post was better than nothing at all, and Helga didn’t think she could bear it if she had to go back to the others with nothing. Decision made, she stepped up to the table outside. The woman behind it was younger than Helga was expecting, with long brown hair piled up haphazardly on top of her head and hands and fingers unmarked by any of the thousand little nicks and marks and scars that had covered the arms of the smiths Helga had known before.

“I saw your sign,” she said without preamble, “What do the wands mean?”

The woman looked up and frowned at her. “Not one to waste words, are you?” she said in a broad, vaguely Norse accent that Helga couldn’t quite identify.

“Are you going to tell me or aren’t you?” Helga almost snapped, before making an effort to gentle her tone. “I’m- Sorry, I-” she scrubbed a hand across her face, “I’ve not had much luck so far,” she admitted.

“If you’ve been growling at everyone that way, I’m not surprised,” the woman replied, wiping her hands on her skirts. “What’s your name?”

“Helgar,” Helga replied, blinking.

The woman nodded. “Mine’s Kenna,” she said. “Right then, Helgar. The wands mean my husband’s in the business of crafting magical artefacts. We get all sorts. So, what makes you think you’ll make a good apprentice for him?”

Helga stared at her. “And you accuse me of being a bit quick off the mark!”

“No, just rude. So, here’s your chance.” Kenna spread her hands in front of her, “What is it about you that means Wystan could do worse than take you on?”

Helga’s mind went blank. She glanced around the tent, hoping to catch sight of something that might jog her memory, until her eyes fell on the runes etched into the tent-frame. “I know runes!” she settled on, “Well, some of them. My aunt had been teaching me for a year when I left home. And I’ve got my letters. I’m not bad with sums either,” she added, and…she shook her head, wondering what else would do. “And I’ve got a knack for herbs,” she blurted out, “M’mam taught me a bit, and I’ve attended a few births in my time. I’d probably be useful for my burn salves if nothing else-”

“Is that so?” the woman looked intrigued now. “Any reason you’re not looking for an apprenticeship in that instead?”

Helga met her eyes squarely. “I’d like to make things,” she said, almost daring Kenna to make something of it. “I’ve tried my hand at spell-making before, but I’d like to be able to create something that’d last a bit longer.”

Kenna nodded, and gave her a satisfied smile. “About time,” she said, sounding genuinely pleased for the first time. “Wystan will be delighted.”

“What?” Helga asked, thrown.

Kenna shifted her weight to lean against the table, “You don’t mind being one of multiple apprentices, do you?” she asked. “We’ve two recruited already, but I don’t think he’ll take more than four.”

“Wait- You mean,” Helga couldn’t quite believe it, “You mean you’ll take me.”

Kenna nodded. “If you’ll take it. It’ll be hard work, mind,” she added, looking at Helga sharply. “It’s not just the smithing, there’s much more magic involved, and a much greater chance of getting caught if the Muggles realise what you’re doing.”

“I don’t mind work, so long as I can see the point in it,” Helga replied, grinning. “And I can handle the rest of it.”

Kenna snorted, and took her hand to shake. “I think we’ll enjoy having you around…what did you say your name was again?”

“Helgar,” Helga repeated, relieved beyond words.

Kenna smiled knowingly over at her. “Of course. _Helgar_.” Helga tried to smile back at her, dread rising up in her belly. Strangely, though, from there it all seemed to be quite remarkably simple. Wystan proved to be a giant of a man, taller by a head even than Rickon, who had shot up like a weed these last few years and was, at fifteen, fast approaching six feet and liable to grow taller still if Auntie Ag’s dire mutterings before they set off had any weight to them. He was bald as an egg, with a shiny pate and a red, sweaty face, and he didn’t talk much, but he looked her over approvingly and seemed impressed to hear that she could read, write and knew enough runes to spare him a few weeks’ worth of lessons. The rest of the boys being taken on weren’t there just then, and she’d probably meet them when the time came to leave, which wouldn’t be until the very end of the fair, so they could take the opportunity to drum up as much business as possible for the coming year. “And, of course,” Kenna had added, “I’ll have to carry on your herbalist’s training- Now, don’t make faces at me, boy, you’ll want it if you haven’t got it.” How was it, Helga wondered, that she had ended up with twice the work she’d been looking for and still felt excited as she meandered back towards the main part of the fair. She’d probably been spending altogether too much time around Rowena for her own good. Somehow, though, the thought wasn’t as funny now she knew that, soon enough, she’d never spend time with Rowena again. Rowena would be a novice until such time as she was ready to take her vows. In Muggle abbeys, things were more complicated, Helga knew. Even among wizards, a girl could spend five years as a novice before she made her final vows and retreated fully from the life of the world, though what that meant exactly Helga couldn’t quite remember. She’d been too distracted by her own situation to really think about what that meant. She’d have to ask for details when the time came, she supposed. It would all be for nothing if Rowena found some other position she liked better, one that would let them stay in touch even after they were both full adults with their own lives and trades to deal with. To a Muggle, the thought would have been ludicrous, and they’d all be thought grown enough already, but then, wizards didn’t grow up as fast as Muggles did, and they kept their children close as long as they could.

Lost in these gloomy thoughts, she almost didn’t hear the sound of a scuffle from behind the next row of tents, but she heard the swearing that followed it, and broke into a run as she recognised the voice, the half-melted snow soaking through her boots as she ran. When she rounded the corner, it was to see Rickon and three other boys she thought she recognised from their convoy, all twice his breadth across the shoulders and more than willing to use it to their advantage. For a moment, she stood frozen, not sure how serious the fight was, but then she caught the gleam of a knife amidst the scuffling figures, and drew her wand, the words already on her lips-

“Relashio!” came a man’s deep voice from nearby, and they were forced apart. Helga waded in, dragging Rickon back by the scuff of his tunic as the knight – and he was a knight, she could see that now – moved forwards.

“Bloody-” Rickon spat, straining against Helga’s grip, but she dug her heels in and kept hold.

The biggest of the other boys sneered, “What’s the matter? Can’t take a bit of a joke?” he spat blood as the knight’s hand clapped down on his shoulder. “What, did you think you was the only one? Bet she was spreading her legs for all three of you, and you never even-” Rickon lunged forwards, and Helga had to actually leap after him and grab both his arms to stop him beating the other boy even further. The other boy laughed, “Bet you even the cripple had her,” he gloated, “Him with the funny eyes who follows you around like a carrion crow-”

“You shut your mouth!” Rickon snarled.

Helga drew her wand and levelled it at the other boy, releasing Rickon in her eagerness to strike. She couldn’t think of anything she’d like more than to see that bastard all over hives and unable to so much as scratch them because his fingers had swollen up until they were thicker than sausages, fit almost to burst.

“Put up your wand,” said the knight. “You,” he added, rounding on the boys, “Keep a civil tongue in your heads in future, and be off with you!” Apparently cowed, they went, the bigger of the two sneering and mouthing something at Rickon which had him snarling again, worse even than before. It was only then that Helga was able to get a good look at the knight himself. Her first thought was that she had never seen anyone so profoundly ordinary before in all her life, but that wasn’t quite right. He was of no more than average height, his hair was an unremarkable brown, his eyes an unremarkable grey, and his features were such that she knew she’d have forgotten his face within minutes of seeing it under any other circumstances. And yet, the two youths had deferred to him without question – and so had she, she realised then, finding her wand arm at her side rather than still levelled at those two boys. It was nothing in his face or his bearing, both of which were so ordinary she had trouble thinking of any other way to describe them, but she felt now, almost instinctively, that here was a man worth respecting.

“It was a brave thing you did there,” the knight said to Rickon, slipping his wand away up his sleeve as he spoke, “Foolish, but brave.”

“Story of my life,” Rickon replied, ducking his head as his ears went red once again. “I mean- It wasn’t anything that special.”

“What happened, anyway?” Helga asked, frowning at her cousin. “I mean, I heard the last bit, but how did they find out…?” she cast a wary look over at the knight, who frowned.

“Yes,” he agreed, “I’d be interested to hear that as well.”

Rickon flushed deeper now, and stared down at his mud- and snow-stained boots. “Not much to tell, really. I got sent away by most of the knights – they’d all found squires already, I think, or didn’t much fancy taking someone who’s already fifteen – and thought I’d go and check on R’ena, see how she was doing. Well, of course she had all the abbeys positively drooling over her,” he added, in a tone which somehow managed to be at once sour and faintly proud.

“As we knew she would,” Helga agreed, shaking her head with a suppressed smirk.

Rickon grinned back at her for a moment before his smile faded “Those idiots,” he added, scowling and nodding in the direction the other boys had fled, “ Saw her there and recognised her, and-” he broke off, scowling and clenching his fists, his jaw set and a muscle going in his throat.

“So we’ll be in trouble with Hafwen if we go back to sleep at the convoy, then.” Helga scowled, tugging off her cap and scrubbing a hand across her shorn scalp. “Just our luck.”

“Yeah,” Rickon agreed, looking downcast. “I should’ve just denied it, but- Well, you heard what they were saying about her! Could you’ve put up with it, if you were me?”

Helga rolled her eyes, “Of course I couldn’t,” she said irritably. “No more could any of us – well, R’ena maybe,” she admitted. “It’s just that we don’t really have anywhere else to go, and we can’t afford a sleeping-tent here.”

“Do you think you’ll be turned out of your convoy for lying?” the knight asked gruffly, frowning at Godric.

“Might well be,” Rickon muttered, “I don’t really know – we pretended she was a boy all the way up, so I don’t know how bad it’s going to be.”

The knight nodded, and glanced over at Helga before returning his attention to Rickon, “You showed spirit there,” he said contemplatively, “And you’re not weak, that’s something.”

Rickon shrugged, “I’m all right, I suppose,” he muttered, scuffing one foot through the slushy mud, “I mean, R’ena’s loads better at spells and stuff…”

“That wasn’t what I said,” the knight replied, “May we speak? In private?”

Rickon stared at him, slack-jawed. “What- But I-”

“You have my word that no harm will come to you,” the knight said firmly, “I just want to talk to you away from unfriendly ears.”

Helga bristled at that, “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, her hand going to her wand.

“No insult is meant to you, but I should rather not be interrupted, and I think your brother-”

“Cousin,” Rickon corrected, looking as though he couldn’t quite believe his own good fortune.

The knight smiled, and it was a startlingly welcoming expression. You couldn’t help but trust a face like that, somehow, though Helga couldn’t say what it was that had done it. “Your cousin, then, would rather make his decision without being pressured either way.”

Helga caught Rickon’s eye, saw the pleading there, and gave in. “All right, then,” she said, “Meet us back at the main tent, Rickon?”

“Yeah, all right,” he replied, an odd note in his voice, and Helga had to hide her smile as she turned away, wandering off towards the grey and white tents of the abbeys to the north of the fairground.

*

Rickon didn’t come back until that evening, but when he did he was positively bubbling over with excitement, with a new purse of silver at his belt and a wider, brighter grin than Helga had seen from him in months on his face.

“I’m a squire,” were the first words out of his mouth, before hastily correcting himself, “Well, a page, anyway. And I’ve only got to train for two years. I don’t think Sir Morcar actually believed me when I said I’d had two years’ page training already, but so long as he goes along with it doesn’t really matter,”

“That’s wonderful!” Rowena exclaimed. She seemed to be about as far over the moon as Rickon, Helga saw, glowing with happiness and excitement. She wondered if she looked the same way. Only Gríma still seemed enveloped in that morning’s pall of gloom, but he was quiet now, watching the rest of them with an odd, forced sort of smile on his face that didn’t do anything to hide the miserable slump of his shoulders. Helga didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so defeated. Not even when they first met, when he was ten and she was nine and she had found him, a ragged, filthy starveling boy, stealing eggs from her mother’s chicken coop. “I told you you’d find something!”

Rickon ducked his head and mumbled something that might have been thanks, but might just as easily have been indigestion. Still, it didn’t seem to put a dent in Rowena’s good cheer.

“Yeah, well,” he managed at last, “We’re, um, we’re supposed to leave first thing in the morning – he’s got to be at Grimpen Castle inside a month, and that’s where I’m supposed to have my training, so…” he shrugged, looking quite remarkably pleased with himself. “Send my letters there, I suppose.”

“Right,” Gríma said, and his voice sounded wrong – too hearty, somehow, and utterly unconvincing. He forced a smile, “What about you?” he added, looking around at Rowena. “Made a decision yet?”

“Not yet,” Ro admitted, “I’ve got three days to make my decision before the end of the fair, when abbey representatives leave, but I’m still not sure whether the Abbey of the Cailleach nan Cruachan is a better choice than- Oh, what was it called?” she frowned, shaking her head. “It’s on the Isle of Skye, so my ravens might take a long time to reach the rest of you.”

“What’s it like, though?” Helga asked, frowning, “I mean, what sort of thing do they do there?”

“Much the same as any other abbey, I expect. It’s up in An Cuiltheann – the Black Cuillin,” she added, as if to explain, though one phrase was as incomprehensible as the other to Helga’s ears. “The mountains there, I mean.” She smiled, delighted with herself and her prospects both, “My old nurse came from up that way, and she used to tell me stories about a cave in the Black Cuillin.”

“What sort of stories?” Rickon asked, grinning at her and leaning on his elbows.

Rowena smiled back. “That you could get to it, if you were brave, and get gold without any cost, but with every visit your heart and mind grew darker, like the place took a little bit of your soul with every time you entered it.”

Helga couldn’t quite suppress a shudder at that, and when she looked over at him Gríma seemed about as spooked. But then, they too alone had ventured into the cave in the Welsh marches, and seen what it was that lurked in its depths, the cunning man who had turned the whole valley against each other with paranoia and superstitious dread. Helga still bore the scars of that encounter, though few enough of them were visible.

“Which one do you like better, then?” she asked, more to distract herself than anything, “I mean – not just the study. Which would you rather actually live in? There’s no point swearing to it if you’re just going to make yourself miserable.”

“Yeah,” Rickon agreed, “That’s right. I mean, if you’re going to stay on,” he added, looking at once hopeful and resigned, which made for a very peculiar expression indeed.

Rowena shook her head. “It’s hard to say. I mean…everything about the abbey on Skye sounds perfect, except it’s so much stricter.”

“That’s never bothered you before, though,” Rickon pointed out helpfully.

“Not like that. I mean…contact with the outside world. I asked,” she explained, “About possibly being able to visit before I took my vows, and they said it would only be possible during my postulant year. I’ll be able to write until I take my final vows, but that’s all.”

“You won’t even be able to write after…?” Helga asked, startled. She had not considered that. Rowena had been so much a part of her life these past few years that she could not imagine, now, what it would be like to lose touch with her entirely.

“No,” Rowena replied. “I mean- It sounds wonderful apart from that, but-” she broke off, looking more torn than Helga had ever seen her, and they lapsed into silence again, watching the rest of the fair go by from the quiet corner of the largest, cheapest sleeping-tent that Rickon’s money had been able to purchase for them.

“You shouldn’t,” Rickon said suddenly, forcefully. “Go to Skye, I mean.”

It was, of course, completely the wrong thing to say, and Helga bit back a groan as soon as he had said it. The damage, of course, was already done.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Rowena snapped at him, eyes flashing dangerously. “I can go to Skye if I want to!”

“Like you really want that!” Rickon spat, “Listen to yourself, R’ena! How are you supposed to do any of that good in the world you’re always harping on about if you’re never _in_ the world to do it?”

“Just because you don’t understand any way of making a difference without swinging a sword around-”

“Will you give it a rest,” Gríma said hopelessly, but neither Rickon nor Rowena seemed to notice. Helga shifted back a little and elbowed him to let him know she was there. “They’ll be at it all night now,” he grumbled, accepting a skin of beer with a grateful nod.

“Wait a few minutes and then ask about Godric’s new position and he’ll be distracted easily enough,” Helga suggested, leaning companionably against his side and ignoring the faint, foolish rush of heat where her shoulder brushed his with the ease of long practice. “You were being very quiet back then. Are your prospects really as bad as all that?”

“You know how bad my prospects are,” Gríma replied, morose as ever, and took another long gulp of beer. “Got myself thrown out of three tents this morning, and three more in the afternoon. Most people would take that as a pretty clear sign I’m not wanted.” And there were all the rest of them, chattering away about their own good fortune. It wasn’t unusual to find a good berth on your first day at the fair, not if you knew what you were looking for and weren’t afraid to say as much when asked. Being able to read and write only made it likelier. All the same, how awful must it be for poor Gríma, who must have spent all day tramping from tent to tent, expecting nothing but scorn and ridicule and getting it wherever he went?

“Can’t let the fact most of them are half-wits get you down,” she said bracingly, “You’re brighter than half the lads on the convoy. And- Well, if worst comes to worst, I’m sure Mam would be glad to see you back again. She could teach you, couldn’t she?”

For the first time in days, the smile that crossed Gríma’s face was neither bleak nor cynical, but not quite hopeful either. “I suppose so, if it comes to it,” he agreed. “Though how I’m supposed to get back to Wales from here…”

Helga smacked him lightly on the shoulder, “You made it the first time from the Fens, and you were only a kid then,” she reminded him. “It would at least give you some way to write to me- to the rest of us, I mean.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” He forced another smile, the hope fading from his face as if it had never been. Did he know, she wondered, just how expressive his face was? It seemed as though every thought he’d ever had was printed plain on the outside of his skull, to make up for those unreadable eyes. She looked away. No use dwelling on that now. Still, now the image was there – a forge somewhere, selling her work by commission, enchanted cauldrons and candlesticks and helmets and knives. A herb garden the two of them could share, if Gríma had a mind to it, maybe a child or two if circumstances allowed, though Helga didn’t want the sort of brood her mother had ended up with. Not a grand life, maybe, but a happy one. It was a surprisingly difficult thought to dislodge, once she’d had it, and she wished now that she hadn’t. The others’ bickering was starting to wind down now, perhaps even they were starting to realise what this meant. This would be the last time they were all together like this. They might meet up again someday, but the days of living out of one another’s pockets, inseparable, would be over. She downed the rest of her ale, and tried not to think of what sort of people they’d be the next time they saw each other.

*

Rickon left them early the next morning. It was still dark out, dim blue-grey light just seeping over the horizon, but the journey down through the borders to Grimpen Castle was a long one, and best started early. He didn’t even protest when Helga hugged him, and his ears went red when Rowena followed suit.

“You promise you’ll write,” Ro said stiffly when she released him, looking rather pink in a way that could not be solely put down to the cold. “As soon as you get in.”

“Soon as I get anything to write about,” Rickon agreed, their earlier quarrel apparently quite forgotten as he smiled at her. He grinned over at Gríma too, who forced a smile back. It looked more like he had toothache than anything else, but at least he made the attempt. “Take care of yourself, mate,” Rickon said, and he sounded almost worried.

Gríma snorted, “Even I can’t get into that much trouble in three days,” he replied. “You’re the one who’s going off to be used for arrow fodder.”

“I’m serious,” Rickon protested, “You get into three times the trouble the rest of us ever-”

“I’ll be fine,” Gríma repeated. “Go on, your knight’s waiting.”

Helga and Rowena shared an amused look behind the boys’ backs. “He’s right,” Helga said at last, hugging her cousin again, harder. “Go on. And make sure you write!”

Rickon grinned at her, went to hug Rowena again but seemed to think better of it at the last moment, and they shared an awkward handshake instead.

The rest of the day passed quietly, at least for Helga, who with her place secure had nothing really to do but tag along with Rowena as she visited the tents of what seemed like every abbey that had made her an offer and quite a few that hadn’t. It was interesting, at first, but three tents’ worth of elderly women in grey robes and grey wimples marvelling at Rowena’s intelligence, her skill at spell-casting, her pretty noble daughter’s manners saw the end of that, and the next three were enough to make Helga wish quite fervently to be anywhere but at Ro’s side. But a promise was a promise, so she didn’t have an excuse to clear off until midday, when the money Rickon had left with them was more than enough to pay for a modest meal of bread and some kind of bean and lentil stew which tasted like dishwater but was at least warm in her mouth when she swallowed it. She had to admit, she could see what Ro liked about the Skye convent. It was one of the last really serious abbeys left, those that didn’t focus on the usual flock of noble daughters looking for somewhere to gain a little polish before their inevitable marriages. It took on a handful such students, as every magical abbey had to if it was to make a living and keep the support of the nobility, but even they were expected to hold to the strict study and high expectations of the nuns themselves. Helga could barely make heads or tails of half the concepts that Rowena had chattered away about happily with the abbey’s main representative, Sister Guennola. It would suit Ro down to the ground, she knew. She wished to every god she knew that it wouldn’t. But, there it was. Rowena was set on this, and nothing Helga could ever say would dissuade her.

The trouble only really started that evening, when Gríma came back from another long day doing gods alone knew what with a split lip and a bloody nose and refused to tell them what had happened.

“You are an idiot,” Helga raged, “A complete and utter cock-eyed, slack-jawed, dribbling _moron_!”

He grinned at her through a mouthful of blood, and winced when the movement re-opened the cut on his lips. “Flattery’ll get you nowhere,” he said, voice thickened slightly by pain.

“I’m serious, Grím!” she shook her head. “What was it? You know I won’t laugh, and I won’t fuss. I just want to know.”

He scowled, and Helga thought he’d clammed up again, but then. “One of the stall-holders had some pretty clear ideas about how much of his time I was worth. When I argued, he did this. Thought I’d be better off leaving before he did any worse.”

“Bastard,” Helga hissed, reaching out to brush away a little of the blood from round his mouth. “I’d be better cleaning that up than you right now. Anything I can’t see?”

“Kicked me in the ribs a couple of times once I was down, but not hard enough to hurt for long. I was already trying to get away by then.”

Helga raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never seen you run away from a fight in your life.”

“I wasn’t running, I was crawling.” He shook his head. “All right, I tried to hex him. That was how I got away in the end. Either he’d been hit or the person next to him –either way it got him off me.”

She nodded, glancing across the tent at Rowena, who had found a knot of others bound for Skye and was talking to them nineteen to the dozen about some theory or other that Helga could scarcely pronounce. Transfiguration, she thought. It sounded like transfiguration, at any rate. Human transfiguration, unless she missed her guess, but beyond that it might have been Greek for all the sense it made to her. “Tomorrow, I’m going round with you,” she said firmly. He opened his mouth to protest, but she ploughed through him. “I know you don’t need a minder. But if this happens again, I don’t want you getting your head smashed in because you annoyed the wrong person. We’ll find you a place between us, you’ll see.”

She meant it then. The next day was another matter. Within two hours they’d been threatened twice, thrown out of no fewer than six tents, and that was even with Helga and her nice, respectable blacksmithing position to act as sponsor. The next day was worse. Helga had to pull three men off Gríma’s struggling body, and hex five more, on the first day. On the second, the numbers had doubled, but still he wouldn’t give up, and while he wouldn’t, neither could she. On the third day, though, they struck lucky.

They were limping away from yet another meeting that had devolved into a fight – another of the lowest, cheapest tents, where fights broke out more frequently than towards the centre of the fair. Gríma looked worse than ever, his hair sticking up in clumps where blood had dried and clotted in it. Helga had got the brunt of it, though, and she knew her face would be three different colours by the end of the day, when the time finally came for them to split up and follow their respective callings to wherever it was they were supposed to be going – Jorvik for Helga, Skye for Rowena, and gods alone knew where for Grím. Rickon’s absence felt like a phantom limb between them, they three who were left, but Helga didn’t know how to put that feeling into words, and so it was left to fester.

“There’s still one tent left,” she pointed out, nodding to the last of them, “What do you say?”

Gríma shrugged. “Couldn’t make things any worse,” he agreed, mopping at the re-opened cut on his lip with his sleeve. Helga scrubbed a hand over her stubbly scalp, feeling the cat’s-tongue roughness there, the slight stickiness of blood, and fell into step at his side.

“So, do you have any better ideas for dealing with this one?” she asked.

Gríma snorted, “What, added to the attractions of taking on a blind, illiterate fenland peasant at all?”

“Oh, shut it, will you? Self-pity’s only going to make matters worse. I know you’re a fair hand at spells, and you’re not bad at potions – it’s only nerves that get in your way.”

“That and not being able to aim properly,” Gríma muttered, “All right, I see your point. I’ll try and come up with something.”

The tent’s owner, when he came out to meet them, gave Helga a bad feeling from the first time she looked at him, with his crooked, yellowed teeth and narrow-eyed, assessing glare. He seemed to fix on Gríma’s blank gaze almost immediately, and his thin lips peeled back from his teeth in disgust.

“Simple, is he?” he asked, turning to Helga, “I’ve no call for brute labour; you can take him away now.”

“I’m not,” Gríma said, already sounding sullen, and Helga cursed inwardly, wondering how long it would be before they were driven away again.

“Not, are you?” the man sneered, “What is it, then?”

“Sight difficulties,” Gríma replied – extemporised, really, and that was what it sounded like. “My vision’s not that good.”

The man snorted, “Blind, are you?”

“No – well, not entirely,” Gríma said desperately, “I mean-” he shook his head, “I have trouble seeing things that are a long way off.” Well, it was true enough, Helga supposed, if somewhat equivalent to saying that the North Sea was occasionally damp or Rowena modestly bright. “It’s not a major problem,” he was saying now, “I’m the best in my whole family with defensive spells, and I’ve had a pretty good grounding in most magic, I’m more than capable of-”

“Your whole family,” the stallholder repeated, “What’s that meant to prove? Just because you’re the best of a bunch of mud-swilling fenland savages doesn’t mean you’re worth anything to the rest of the world, boy.”

“Don’t you talk to him like that!” Helga snapped, “He’s not done anything to you!”

“He’s wasting my time, isn’t he?” the stallholder sneered, “Be off with the pair of you, now.”

Gríma swallowed, and Helga could see the fury building now. Under any other circumstances, this would be where a fight began. But he needed this, and so it was with some relief that she saw him choke it back. “I don’t think you quite understand…” he tried hopefully.

“I understand fine. This one,” the stall-keeper nodded at Helga, “He’s trying to get rid of you so he can go and get a berth of his own. Well, that’s right kind of him, but I don’t have time for charity and I don’t have time for you, so thank you kindly and bugger off.”

“But-” Gríma started. Helga, though, saw the danger signs in the stall-holder’s face, the way his hand slid under the table where she knew the cudgel would be waiting. She tugged at Gríma’s sleeve, and though he glowered fiercely at his boots, he went.

“What was that all about?” he hissed as soon as they were safely away, though Helga saw out of the corner of her eye how the stall-holder spat after their departing feet.

“He was going for his stick,” Helga replied, “I thought we could do without another drubbing.”

Gríma winced. “All right, makes sense,” he said ruefully, rubbing again at his lip. “What now?”

“There’s always the next lot of tents,” Helga suggested, but it was half-hearted at best. The next lot of tents she knew would be no better. “Or- I know you don’t like the idea, but we’ve got the money to pay your passage back to London – you can probably get home from there, and then either Mam or Aunt Agnes can put you up.”

“I won’t impose on them,” Gríma replied, sounding wooden, “There has to be _someone_ -”

“Who?” Helga shook her head, “It looks bad, Grím. We’ve combed through half the fair, and there’s still no-one-”

“So I’ll keep looking – without you, if that’s the way you feel about it!”

Helga rolled her eyes. Of course it would come down to this. Gríma’s pride was an awful thing to see, but sometimes it had to be placated, and sometimes it had to be quashed. “All right, then,” she said, quite coolly, “Go on, go and get your face kicked in. It’s no problem of mine if you want to get yourself killed!”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?”

Helga scowled at him. It had no effect, but then, she hadn’t expected it to. “Listen to me! Mam’d be more than willing to take you on, if you’d just go back to Wales.”

“After the way we left? They’ll gut me for sport if I go back, and you know it.”

“So use another name! You’re not that recognisable, and we didn’t get out much anyway! No-one’ll believe it’s you!”

Gríma shook his head. He looked more miserable than she had ever seen him. “I’ll find another way. There’s got to be something I’ve missed, there’s got to.”

“And what if there isn’t?” Helga demanded, exhausted, “What then?”

Gríma threw up his hands, apparently beyond words. It was about then that it happened.

“Excuse me?” Helga looked around. Gríma did too, cocking his head slightly to one side. The man who had spoken was not what either of them had expected. He was slightly taller than average, with an odd shade of tawny-fair hair and a kind, appealing sort of face.

“What is it?” Helga asked, squaring her stance. The thought of her run-in with Rickon’s new knight-master came to mind, and she embraced it, hoping this would have as happy an end.

“I, ah, couldn’t quite help but overhear,” the man said, in a pleasant, cultured, lulling voice. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“It’s no problem, really,” Gríma replied, looking about as mystified as Helga felt. “What did you overhear that interested you?”

“Nothing so very unusual,” the fair-haired man said quickly, “Only that you were having trouble finding a place for yourself here, and I was just wondering what such a clearly promising young man as yourself could have done to make himself so unsuitable as an apprentice.” He smiled. “You seem well-spoken enough, all things considered. Can you read?”

“No,” Gríma admitted, hunching his shoulders defensively. “Nor write. I’m blind, too,” he added aggressively, as if daring this man to find fault with it.

“Really?” the man raised his eyebrows, “How did you think to find a place here, with such obstacles standing in your path?”

Once again, Helga thought of the knight who had taken Rickon. This man seemed every bit as trustworthy as he had done, but was either impression accurate? She thought of Rickon, and whether he was suffering now.

“I’m a fair hand with defensive spells,” Gríma admitted, “I can do most things – charms, transfiguration, most simple potion-making so long as it isn’t too fiddly.”

The man nodded, “That seems more than enough to be going on with,” he agreed, “I’ve been looking for an apprentice myself, as it happens. Well, I say apprentice…assistant, I suppose. I hold a position in a noble household in Northumbria, but my duties are becoming rather onerous of late…it might be demanding, but I can promise a stable place and a roof over your head, and that’s more than many can offer.”

Gríma frowned, “Right…so, what’s in it for you, then?”

“Merely a common interest,” the stranger admitted, “I’ve a position I’ve yet to find anyone suited for, and you are at least reasonably well-spoken and don’t appear a complete fool. The rest, I think, can be taught.”

Helga frowned. Everything about this seemed too good to be true – people didn’t make offers like that, not out of the blue. And a good place in a noble household was more than most ever dared dream of. And if he was going to be that picky over candidates, why choose a half-blind peasant boy from the back of beyond who for all this man knew had never seen the inside of a great hall before. The stranger saw her watching him, though, and raised his hands defensively.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said kindly, “And you’re right to think it. There are dangerous people about. That’s why I’m offering,”

“I’m not that much protection against dangerous people,” Gríma said warily.

The man gave a polite, self-deprecating smile. His open, friendly face positively shone. “Not what I meant,” he replied, “Dangerous people about, any one of them willing to take advantage of people’s desperation, especially this late in the proceedings. It’s a fairly safe assumption that anyone left this late has either found a place already or is so desperate to find one that they will do anything, risk anything, to find someone willing to take them.” He smiled, wider this time, understanding and kindly, “I know what that sort of desperation is like. You’ll excuse me for not wanting to see anyone else fall into the same trap.”

Gríma frowned, but then seemed to come to a decision. “Well, that’s very gracious of you,” he said, almost cheerily, “Um, my name’s Gríma, by the way.”

“Edwin,” the taller man replied, offering a hand to shake, which Gríma took with some difficulty. He looked almost punch-drunk, Helga thought, almost giddy with excitement to have found himself a place. “Do you have any other belongings?”

“None,” Gríma admitted, “We lost our baggage weeks ago. I’d like to tell the others where I’m going, though.”

A flicker of something that was not quite irritation flashed for a moment across Edwin’s face, but he assented willingly enough. Gríma was very nearly walking on air as they went to find Rowena and tell her the news, and Helga couldn’t help but be happy for him. Later, she would kick herself for that. If it seemed too good to be true, after all, in all probability it was. But for now, the awful, choking desperation that had enveloped him like a fog was gone, and he seemed himself again.

*

The next morning, the three of them said their farewells. There was usual chorus of reminders to write and send word as soon as they reached their destinations, to take care of themselves, not to get too caught up in what they were doing to stay in touch for as long as they could, and then it was over. Helga made her way to the craftsmen’s tents, and looked for the sign of the cup flowing with water. There were three boys already there, with whom she exchanged curt nods, none of them wanting to speak at length so early in the morning, and a fourth arrived ten minutes later. Around them, the tents were being packed away, and soon enough they were drafted to do the same for their new apprentice-masters. Kenna grinned at Helga when they caught one another’s eyes across the canvas that remained once they’d finished with the ropes and pegs which held it. She made a quick, clear gesture around chest level, and Helga nodded her thanks as she tried to adjust her bindings, which had loosened significantly overnight.

“Best to learn some concealment charms now,” Kenna murmured when they were next close enough that it wouldn’t raise suspicions. “I can teach you a couple, if you’d like.”

“Thanks,” Helga muttered, looking around. “So, what happens next?”

What happened next was, they joined the convoy for Jorvik, greater by far than the half-a-hundred smaller convoys that had flocked north. Kenna and her husband the blacksmith had a pony, weighed down with the tent and the rest of their baggage, but the apprentices would have to walk. It was an odd feeling, going forwards, surrounded by strangers. It felt almost dreamlike, settling again into the rhythms of a travelling convoy, running errands and trying awkwardly to make conversation with the other apprentices. The road to Jorvik stretched out ahead of them, and Helga knew that there would be no going back after this.

**END OF PART ONE**


	8. Part 2, Chapter 1

**PART 2 - GODRIC**

If Godric had been expecting grandeur, he would have been sorely disappointed. As it was, however, it had been five days’ hard tramp through wind and rough weather since the mule Sir Morcar had lent him had slipped and broken its leg and had to be put down, with the slush melting through his boots, and he had no hopes of anything but a hot bath, a good meal and then, gods willing, to bed, and sleep without dreams. It was getting on for sunrise now, dawn coming in streaks and slashes over the moor, and Godric hoped to all the gods that he wasn’t going to have to go through the whole day’s work after the long night’s march across the boggy hills and dales south to Grimpen Castle. The place was more like a fortified town than the fanciful confections Godric had always imagined when, as a child, his mother had mentioned castles in her stories, and built in stone rather than the more usual wood. It was blunt and solid and menacing with its high, slitted windows and a gate wide enough to admit two carts side-by-side – which was doing so, in fact, right then. Or had been doing so – there seemed to have been some sort of collision, though Godric couldn’t see well enough at this distance to tell exactly what was going on, except that it seemed to involve a lot of shouting which would probably have been quite obscene if Godric could make out any actual words above the general din of travel, which had grown louder since they joined the trickle of people making their way up towards the castle gates.

Sir Morcar at least seemed reasonably adept at guiding his horse through the crowds, which were thicker than Godric had been anticipating. But then, Grimpen was the seat of the Council’s Warden of the North, and had been so since it was a Roman hill-fort. Of course it would be busy. Godric was not nearly so lucky, and ended up being jostled by three milkmaids, a drover and his whole flock of sheep, and what looked like a blind beggar in his rags and tatters, the blindfold over his eyes marked with dark, suspicious-looking stains. Godric felt an odd pang at that, and fumbled in his pouch for a coin.

“Here,” he muttered, pressing it into the beggar’s hands and trying not to think of whether that was the fate that awaited Gríma if he failed to find a place for himself. It was an awful thought. He brushed off the beggar’s garbled murmur of thanks, only to find that he had lost his new knight-master in the throng and now had to run to catch up with him again. This was much easier said than done, as Sir Morcar had dismounted to walk with Godric after the mule was lost, and though the horse was easily enough picked out in a crowd, getting to it was rather more difficult. So it was that he only succeeded in returning to his new knight-master’s side at the very gates, still blocked by the two carts and their drivers, who had now succeeded in repairing them and were busy hurling abuse at one another in language so colourful that even Godric, no stranger to profanity himself, could not help but be faintly impressed.

“There you are,” Sir Morcar said gruffly, “What was it?”

Godric stared down at his filthy boots. “Beggar,” he mumbled, too low, he thought, to be heard.

Sir Morcar nodded, but didn’t reply, spurring his horse forward as the smaller of the two carts rumbled out of the gates towards the hills, the remaining carter still screaming abuse at it as it went.

Inside, the castle was unlike anything Godric had ever seen before, with the rows of ramshackle wooden houses pressed like limpets along the grey stone walls, the hawkers calling out their wares. It stank to high heaven, such that Godric almost choked into his scarf, worse even than Lud’s Town. But Lud’s Town had not felt this small, or this oppressive. It had the feeling of a border fort, meant to defend against invaders and well-accustomed to war. He drew his scarf across his mouth and nose, but that did little enough against the sheer stench of the place.

“Have you ever been under siege here?” he asked, looking up at the high battlements overhead.

“Once or twice,” Sir Morcar replied, and his voice was grim.

Godric frowned. “By Muggles?”

“No. Giants, sometimes, but not Muggles.” Sir Morcar gestured to the portcullis. “There are solid enough defences here that a mob couldn’t breach them, and it’s too well-armed for a siege to last long.”

“ _Giants_?” Godric repeated, and to his disgust his voice shook as he said it. “Are- Are you serious?”

Sir Morcar nodded, lips thin and eyes hard. “They come down in particularly lean winters, when the mountains can’t offer rich enough pickings for them. And they’ll maraud through human areas most winters. You’ll likely be sent out against them when you’re a squire.”

Godric swallowed, but nodded gamely enough. He didn’t want to be thought a coward, even if his heart and stomach had knotted up at the mention of fighting giants and did not seem likely to unknot themselves any time soon. He watched the stallholders as they passed, selling turnips, or cloth, or beads. It was nothing at all next to Lud’s Town, and yet so unlike Fox Hollow that a rush of homesickness swept through Godric, almost choking him. He’d have given anything, right then, for the sight of green fields and dappled woodlands over the hills of the West Country, rather than grey walls and grey heath under a grey morning sky here in the Dales. It had never seemed farther away than it did in this moment, and Godric turned to look up at the castle as the dirt road sloped muddily upwards towards the keep.

“You’ll be in the barracks in the north tower with the rest of the boys,” Sir Morcar said gruffly. “They’ll be hard on you – you’re older than them, for a start, and what training you may have had doesn’t seem to have been that thorough.”

Godric felt the blood rushing to his face, remembering how easily Sir Morcar had put him through his paces and how lacking his abilities had been. He was not altogether untrained with a sword – he knew the beginning moves well enough from his brothers, and he wasn’t a weakling whatever anyone said – but somehow he hadn’t been able to react fast enough, as though his muscles had forgotten all those weeks of sparring-practice with his brothers in the courtyard at Fox Hollow, and he had been easily overcome. His riding had always been vile, and so he was quite glad he had not yet been asked to display it, and though he was a fair shot with a bow, if nothing to his cousin, from long years spent poaching in the woods around his father’s house, that was hardly a knight’s weapon.

At length, they reached the gates of the castle itself, and another great portcullis, lifted now, but only half-way so that the fierce spikes that tipped each bar could be seen clearly. It was heavy iron, rusted in places but still gleaming dully in the weak early morning sunlight, dented here and there but still sturdy.

The courtyard wasn’t deserted, but it was hardly bustling either, with only two or three grooms about their duties and a handful of men Godric presumed were knights in their fine surcoats and riding leathers. They didn’t pay him any mind, though one or two called out greetings to Sir Morcar, who returned them solemnly as he handed off his horse to one of the stable lads.

“Up this way,” he said gruffly, nodding to a small gate in the north wall of the courtyard, “I’ll see you set up here, but then I’ll be going.”

“You- You don’t live here, then?” Godric asked, frowning at him.

Sir Morcar shook his head. “I have quarters here, but most of my time is spent in the field. You’ve heard of knights-errant, haven’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Godric admitted, “I just didn’t think-” He hadn’t thought they were really a thing that existed. It had been stories of knights-errant that made him want to be a knight in the first place, all those years ago, no matter how often Percival told him that real knights-errant were more like brigands than the noble defenders of the downtrodden he had read about and played at when on his own in the woods and fields surrounding Fox Hollow.

“It’s as important as any other duty,” Sir Morcar said sternly. “Less glamorous, perhaps, but we keep our oaths better, I think. Other knights serve their lords, but a knight-errant is free to serve wherever his conscience leads him.”

“I know,” Godric replied irritably. “I was just surprised, that’s all.” It was, more or less, the same argument he’d used whenever someone asked him why he wanted so desperately to go on errantry himself, albeit put more neatly than he had ever managed. All the same it rankled to have the old credo echoed back at him like this.

“Very well, then. Up you go.” It was very dark in the passage, and on the narrow spiral staircase, for the narrow slitted windows did not allow more than the faintest sliver of light in. The few flickering torches placed at uneven intervals along the walls did little to alleviate the darkness. Godric was petrified the whole way up that he’d trip and fall in the dark, but somehow his feet found the next step, and the next, and the next, until he was standing in front of a great oak door and Sir Morcar, behind him, reached over Godric’s shoulder – they were of a height, or very nearly, Godric noticed now for the first time – and knocked once, firmly, on the door.

“Enter!” came a bored voice from within, and the door swung open to reveal another room, larger and lighter than the stairwell, with wider windows, their shutters folded back to reveal a view of the innermost courtyard, where a group of bleary-looking boys a little younger than Godric were trooping out of the keep under the eye of a fierce-looking man holding a riding-crop.

“The pages,” explained the voice, and Godric looked around, to see a stooped, greying-fair man with the beleaguered, bookish look of a castle steward about him. “You look a bit old for that. What did you bring him for?” This last was addressed to Sir Morcar, making Godric bristle a little at being overlooked.

“Master Godric here wishes to join the pages,” Sir Morcar said gruffly, “He’s had two years’ worth of his education already, in a minor knight’s household, but his last master has died and so he came to me in search of a new place.”

The steward raised his eyebrows. “Is he not a little old for that?” he asked. “He must have started his training at – what, fourteen? You can’t tell me he’s much less than sixteen.”

“Fifteen,” Godric corrected, feeling distinctly mutinous now. “I started training when I was thirteen. M’parents didn’t- I’m a ninth son, so…” his ears were burning now, and he shut his mouth with a sharp snap of teeth, too loud in the quiet room.

“Hmm…” The steward looked him up and down, considering. “Well, Morcar always has had an eye for talent…if he’s willing to sponsor you, I shan’t speak against it, though I must say,” this rather louder, “That you don’t look like much to me. Name?”

“Godric of Fox Hollow,” Godric replied, setting his jaw.

The steward nodded, “And your father?”

“Artus of Fox Hollow. _Sir_ Artus of Fox Hollow,” Godric added. His father was as much a knight as Sir Morcar, even if he’d never, to Godric’s knowledge, ridden out on errantry or completed even one quest in service. He had as much right to be here as anyone, Godric reminded himself. Certainly as much as any of the boys he had seen in the courtyard.

“And your country?” the steward pressed.

Godric started. “What- uh, Cornwall.”

The steward’s lips thinned, but he made no comment. Godric grit his teeth, forcing himself to remember that he needed this man’s approval, that without it even Sir Morcar’s patronage might not be enough to secure him a place there. It did not stop him from wanting to punch the steward, though, only from doing it.

“I see,” the steward said. “And…you’re to be a third-year page, is this correct?” Godric nodded, not trusting himself to speak. “In which case – Alfred!”

Godric started – he hadn’t noticed the man standing in the corner, dressed in the simple, unadorned browns and greys of a castle servant.

The steward gestured in his direction, “Take Master Godric here to Mildthryth to be outfitted – and see that he’s well-washed – then show him to the pages’ dormitory.” Godric bristled a little at that, but a warning look from Sir Morcar was enough to stop his protests before they even reached his lips. The steward looked Godric up and down, and nodded. “For the next two years, you will be a page. You will wait at table at the evening meal and run errands for any lord or lady who asks you. Half your days will otherwise be spent learning the fighting arts. The other half you will spend with your books, in the vain hope that we can teach you how to think. When your masters judge that you are ready, you will be made a squire, and then Sir Morcar will continue their training. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Godric said. “Sir,” he added, when it seemed more was expected of him.

The steward nodded. “Since you have been a page before in a lesser establishment, you will not be in any need of a sponsor among your fellows. I’m sure you will find your feet soon enough.” He smiled, but it was a kinder expression than Godric had been expecting. “You may see Master Godric out, Alfred.”

The next stop was the castle tailors, where Mildthryth – an ethereal-looking wisp of a woman who bustled and barked orders in such a way that it took Godric a good few minutes to realise she was actually smaller than he was – whipped a knotted cord around his shoulders and hips, tutting and prodding at him when the time came to measure his height. He was, it turned out, too tall for any of the pages’ tunics to fit him, forcing her to drive him out of her workroom in hose and shirt but next to nothing else, only to be bundled into a bath and scrubbed so thoroughly his skin was still aching half an hour later.

It was only after the bath that two more sets of hose and an equal number of shirts were pressed into Godric’s arms with a firm injunction that if he tore any of them, he’d be doing his own mending and a promise that there would be a tunic altered to fit him within the week. Training clothes came next, and a long nightshirt which made him very glad Helga’s two brothers weren’t there to laugh at him for how much like one of R’ena’s nightdresses it looked. Once all of that was done he was all but dead on his feet, so that even the battered old straw mattress in the corner of the pages’ dormitory seemed like heaven, for all its scratching. Sleep was not long in coming, though he dreamt strangely – of chessmen taller than he was fighting, of watching something like a great scarlet serpent winding through green fields far below him, of Rowena, lying stiff and unmoving in a narrow cot, one hand upraised as if to touch something that was no longer there.

*

It was dark when Godric awoke at last, feeling somehow more exhausted than he had been when he went to bed in the first place. Dark and cold, so cold he almost felt himself to be still out on the road, but for the scratch of the worn woollen blanket and the sound of loud snoring nearby, too loud and too discordant to come from any one person. He rolled over, tried to sleep, and almost immediately gave it up as a bad job. He fumbled in the dark to pull on the new training uniform, and picked his way across the room, avoiding the two long rows of straw mattresses on both sides, before pressing one eye to the arrow-slit. He must have slept straight through the day, and well into the night as well, because the darkness outside had that odd, faintly blueish quality that meant it was nearly morning. His head was pounding, worse than if he’d been drinking, and he turned away from the window, scrubbing a hand over his face. He’d never been bad with people, not exactly, but having to break into a group of boys younger than he was, who already had their friendships and enmities so firmly established was a very different thing to what he’d experienced before. It was, he realised, just what R’ena must have put up with when she first came to them. Godric felt an odd pang at that, though he couldn’t fathom why. He wished she were there, so he wouldn’t feel so much alone here – Helga would only tease and Gríma was too often too wrapped up in his own problems to really listen to anyone else’s, especially this past month since they’d set off for the apprenticing fair, but R’ena might understand the odd mixture of trepidation and excitement churning in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to be a knight, had wanted it more than anything since the first time he had heard one of his mother’s bedtime stories, and the disappointment he had felt when Percival, the great prat, had taken it upon himself to remind him how slim the chances of his ever being able to make it as a ninth son with no real prospects to speak of. Well, Percival didn’t know everything, Godric thought mulishly. He’d got this far, hadn’t he? He ignored the little voice that sounded like Rowena that kept reminding him he only got this position by chance and anyway, being a page didn’t automatically mean he was ever going to be knighted. It was a start, wasn’t it?

He must have dozed off again while sitting there, because the next he knew he was being shaken roughly awake, his back and shoulders achingly stiff and both his legs having fallen asleep, which really ought to have been a clue as to what sort of day was to follow.

“Wha-? Sir Morcar-?” Godric mumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the heel of his hands and staring blearily around the place. It wasn’t yet light out, with grey half-light seeping through the slitted window of the pages’ dormitory.

The page who had woken him shook his head. “Squires get their own rooms when they’re here,” he said, in a tone which somehow managed to be both servile and condescending. “Or are you a servant? You’ll catch it if you’re caught sleeping in the pages’ quarters either way, you know.”

“Aren’t you friendly?” Godric said irritably. “Name’s Godric, I’m supposed to be joining the third-year pages.”

“Oh.” The boy looked him up and down. “You look old for it,”

Godric glared at him. “What’s it to you?” he snapped, groaning at the stiffness in his legs. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Orrell,” the boy replied, still with that same fawning condescension. “I’m in the third year too.”

“Brilliant,” Godric said heavily, “Just brilliant.”

Grumbling and protesting, the pages made their way downstairs, to a long, grey, dispiriting hall where they were served equally grey porridge and thick slabs of coarse black bread which was, Godric supposed, meant to be character-building. That’s what Percival, the prat, had called it, whenever they had to do something awful back home. He’d gone on about it for hours, the way the ancient Greeks had trained their warriors, and if even half of what he’d said was even halfway true, Godric supposed he ought to feel grateful he hadn’t been sleeping on a mattress of thistles out in the yard. They didn’t talk over breakfast, though whether that was because they weren’t allowed to or because everyone else was still too bleary-eyed to hold up their end of a conversation he didn’t know. There came a bell when the meal was over, and Godric hurried to his feet as everyone else stood around him. Standing, it was even more obvious that he was taller by a foot even than the next-tallest boy on the long trestle table, no matter how much he hunched his shoulders to make himself smaller.

Outside, in the practice yard, the pages formed up into two ranks almost automatically, and Godric hurried to join the end of the further line. There were thirteen of them now, with Godric there, and he wondered how they would manage sparring, when the time came. The master-at-arms was the last to leave the hall, and Godric’s heart sank. He was shorter than Godric too, though only by an inch, broad and sturdy-looking and hatchet-faced, and he carried a heavy riding crop in one hand. He stopped when he caught sight of Godric, and headed over.

“Name?” he asked.

Godric swallowed. “Godric…um, sir. I’m supposed to be joining the third-year pages.” “Yes, thank you, I had been told.” The man frowned at him. “You ought to be at the other end,” he said, not unkindly, “You’re too big to make a creditable opponent to any of this lot. I suppose I’ll have to partner you until I can find someone the right sort of size.”

Ears burning, Godric went to join the far end of the line, trying not to listen to the hushed snickering of the other pages or the hissed, jeering comments of the bolder boys.

“Quiet down now!” the master-at-arms barked. “Pair up and take a staff each!”

The pages hurried to obey, though it took Godric a while to find one the right size for him, and then they were trying blocks and strikes just like him and his brothers in the yard at Fox Hollow, or the cudgel-work he’d been taught as part of the convoy north. Godric grinned to himself. Finally, something he knew.

“Left line strikes, right line blocks!” called the master-at-arms. “All right, lad, let’s see you.”

Godric lunged for the man’s face, only to be pushed back hard by the master’s staff. He tried twisting around to sweep the other end of the staff and knock the man’s knees out from under him, but it was too slow, too clumsy, and the master side-stepped it with ease.

“Not bad,” he said. “All right, let’s see that again, lads!”

It was easy, after a while, to fall into the rhythm of it, blocking and striking almost by rote, the aching stiffness in his limbs slowly dissipating, until the master-at-arms called a halt and directed them on to the stables. They went, dragging their feet and grumbling, and Godric last of all. He’d never much liked horses. The ones at Fox Hollow had all either thrown, kicked or tried to bite him at least once (occasionally all three), and he’d never got the hang of how to ride one without being jolted every which way at anything above a gentle walk.

“All right, everyone to your horses,” the master-at-arms barked, “New boy, there’s one going spare about your size – poor Sir Athol’s old grey.”

“Right,” Godric muttered, craning his neck. Then he caught sight of his new mount. “A-barth an Jowl a gyj!” he swore, starting back violently.

The master-at-arms gave him a thin smile, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck.”

Godric nodded, approaching the horse warily. It puffed out a breath and glared at him. He had known horses before, though he never did have Helga’s affection for them, and he could safely say that this one looked to be one of the more vicious of the breed. It stood at sixteen hands high, and was broad enough to make even Godric feel nervous about approaching it. What that said about the late Sir Athol Godric didn’t know, except possibly his cause of death. He didn’t much fancy going anywhere near the wretched beast, but he couldn’t see any way out of it now. There was tack hanging up opposite the stall, and Godric hurried to fetch it. The horse was uncommonly docile all the while that Godric was saddling, or at least so it seemed until he tried to mount it, only to find himself in short order sprawled on his back in the straw with his head spinning as the grey nickered with what Godric would swear was the horse equivalent of malicious laughter. A similar wave of laughter came from the other pages, and Godric bristled, but it was impossible to tell when he looked around which of them had laughed and which hadn’t. He dragged himself back to his feet, and looked over at the horse, whose saddle was now upside-down, its stirrups hanging down.

It bit him when he tried to tighten the girth again, and only got worse when Godric slapped it hard on the flank, squashing him up against the far side of the stall and snapping at him all the while, but eventually he managed to mount up again and went out to join the rest of the boys in the practice yard.

They were forming up into a line again when he joined them, and the master-at-arms hardly blinked. Godric wondered just how bad-tempered the grey usually was, if it took this long to saddle him.

“All right, turn them! Due east! Stop messing around and do it, Sweyn! And you, Aillard! Walk on – in a circle!”

Godric kicked at the grey’s sides, but it just huffed and didn’t move. He tugged hard at the reins, but that didn’t seem to have any more effect.

“Hurry up there, new boy!” the master-at-arms barked. “Kick him harder – he’s not going to break!”

His only consolation, once he finally got the accursed beast to move, was that it was at least over quickly. And then the order came to trot them. Godric swallowed. He’d been dreading this bit.

“No, for- Thor’s bloody hammer, boy! Have you never ridden a horse before!” the master-at-arms bellowed, “You rise and fall _with the horse_ , you great oaf!”

Godric’s ears burned, but right then it was all he could do to cling onto the blasted animal’s back and keep it from biting the horse in front. It came as a relief when the lesson ended, even if that meant dismounting and trying to get the tack off the grey, which was, if anything, even worse-behaved now than it had been at the start of the lesson.

“I’m almost tempted to ask that you be sent off for dog-meat and go without a horse!” Godric said irritably, putting the last of the tack away. “You’d deserve it, you know.” The grey snorted, and Godric glowered at it. “Dog-meat,” he repeated. “Hell, _I’d_ eat you if I thought it’d get me another horse for training.” He’d heard stories of knights eating their own horses on particularly hard campaigns. Right now, he imagined he could do so quite cheerfully.

“Don’t worry,” came a new voice, soft and slightly snide and too much like Percival for Godric to stand. “They only give that horse to recruits they don’t think are going to be here that long. I’m sure you won’t have to put up with it much longer.”

“Great,” Godric said sourly, “Just great. Do you have anything useful to do, or are you just here to gloat?”

The boy smiled at him. It wasn’t the sort of vicious smirk Godric had expected, but it put his back up all the same. “Well, it doesn’t signify anyway,” he said, in the tones of someone who knew himself to be the most intelligent person in the room. “Do hurry up. It’s dinner now, and then we’ve our lessoning.”

“Brilliant.” Godric glowered down at his boots. Maybe he was getting ahead of himself, but he’d never wanted to give anyone a clip around the ear more than he did just then. “Go on, then, don’t let me keep you.”

“That’s very rude of you,” the boy said reprovingly. “I suppose they don’t have manners in such places as Cornwall. You’ll have to learn fast, if you’re going to become a squire before you turn twenty.”

Godric coloured, wishing he’d thought to disguise his accent. “You’re a fine one to talk,” he said sullenly. “Can’t you bugger off and pester someone else?”

The boy sniffed. “Well, if that’s how you’re going to take it,” he said haughtily. “I was going to offer to help you in the afternoon’s classes – you’ll need to learn to read, first of all.”

“I _can_ read,” Godric gritted out.

“Can you?” the boy said, carelessly disbelieving. “Well, suit yourself, then, but Grimpen isn’t some country manor-house. We have standards here, and I’d see to it you meet them if I were you.” With this last, very Percival-ish pronouncement, he left, leaving Godric to finish up with the tack and head out after him.

“Arrogant little sod,” he muttered to himself. All the same, he would have been glad of company. He wasn’t used to spending more than a few minutes at a time on his own, without R’ena or Helga or Grím or else one of his many brothers close at hand if he wanted a chat or a game of chess. It felt odd to be without them now. He kicked the stall wall, and then wished he hadn’t; as all it had done was add stubbed toes to his inventory of aches and pains.

Dinner was every bit as plain as breakfast had been, although there was more conversation, but no-one spoke to Godric. A few of the boys cast odd looks in his direction, but none appeared to want to risk actually talking to him. It didn’t last long, in any case, before they were being called out again, and hurried up two flights of stairs to a long room full of heavy oaken desks.

It is always a little disappointing when someone fulfils a stereotype to several decimal places, and if he’d ever attempted to portray himself on a mummer’s stage the poetry master would almost certainly have been hounded off it again in short order by jeering laughter and quite possibly projectile rotten vegetables. He was an almost affectedly slender waif of a man, with fine, delicate features which would have been almost pretty if not for the constant expression of bored superiority he had at some point decided to adopt. Presumably he thought it would make him seem more dignified. It didn’t. He entered the room in such a cloud of strong-smelling civet that Godric, who had the misfortune to be sitting nearest the door, almost doubled over from the stench, and even the boys further in looked hard-pressed to keep from doing likewise.

“Eustace!” the man called, in a sharp, high voice, pointing at the boy from the stables. “Take in the poems I set last lesson, please.” Godric shifted nervously, which was in hindsight probably a mistake, as all it did was attract the poetry master’s attention to him. “You, boy!”

Godric winced. “Uh…yes?” he hazarded.

“Yes, _sir_ ,” the poetry master snapped. “Who are you?”

Godric bristled, “Thought we were meant to be here to learn manners,” he said irritably, and watched the poetry master’s face flush an ugly red.

“Punishment duty tonight!” he snapped. “Report to the armoury straight after supper, and let that teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head!”

Godric’s face burned as the snickering redoubled, but at least it didn’t seem like the whole class this time. Across the room, a kind-faced boy with a rather girlish mop of dark curls caught his eye and winced sympathetically.

“I suppose I’m to assume you’re the new boy,” the poetry master said. “Well? What has your grounding in the subject been?”

“Um…” Godric stared down at his boots. “I don’t really- We didn’t really- We didn’t study-” he broke off, more embarrassed than ever.

“Is that so,” the poetry master said nastily. “Where were you training? Some country backwater where they’d call you a knight if you knew which end of a sword to stick them with, I expect.”

“Cornwall,” Godric muttered. “I trained with-”

He was spared the trouble of making up a knight he might conceivably have trained with that was friendly enough with the family to let it go by if anyone asked by the poetry master raising a hand to silence him. “Enough, boy. I suppose you were at least taught to read?”

“Yes,” Godric said mulishly.

The poetry master gave him a withering look. “Indeed. Read this, translate and copy it out. I’ll get back to you later.” He shoved a few sheets of parchment into Godric’s hands, and turned away. Godric thumbed through them and groaned. He’d learnt the rudiments of Latin – as very few people bothered to write anything down in any other language, it seemed the thing to do – but picking up a little bit here and there was a very different thing to poetry. Why did he even have to learn this stuff? Tactics and strategy he’d expected, chivalry he could have coped with, but _poetry_! What good was that ever going to do him? He supposed it was all right for them that liked it, but he’d never claimed to be one of them. Still, anyone could copy, and it wasn’t what you’d call arduous work. The poem was at least a short one, all about the end of winter and the joys of the new spring. His mother would probably have loved it. It was exactly the sort of thing she’d used to make them all practice their handwriting when they were younger. No matter how much they all complained – except R’ena, the great know-all – they all had to do it. Well, all but Gríma, anyway. When the poetry master returned, he scanned the parchment with a thin-lipped glare, occasionally tossing out a comment such as ‘poorly translated, this – ‘sereno’ means more than just a clear sky’ or else ‘your handwriting is execrable, boy, were you using a pen or a poker?’ In the end, though he handed it back with a shallow nod, and turned again to face the class.

“Ahem. Boys! As you may know, we are finishing the classics now, and moving on to our own compositions. I have read yours, and they are…passable, I suppose. One or two of you _will_ be seeing me later, however.” Godric shuffled nervously, hoping he wouldn’t be one of them. Poetry was an awful enough prospect for an hour a day, and remedial sessions might well see him out altogether. “From this point on, we will be covering chivalric and romantic poetry – remember, this will come into your chivalry lessons. You! Godric, isn’t it?”

“What- Yeah?”

The poetry master smiled nastily. “Would you like to give us an example?”

“Um…Roses are red, violets are blue?” Godric offered, trying desperately to remember the last couple of lines before giving up. “Most poems rhyme, but this one doesn’t,” he settled on at last, trying to play it off as a joke. There was a general howl of mirth from the rest of the class, and the poetry master was forced to rap his stick hard against the front row of desks to restore order, catching a few boys’ knuckles along the way.

“That will do!” he snapped, “And that’s another hour of punishment duty you’ve bought yourself, boy! I won’t stand for cheek in this classroom.” The blow itself was glancing, but the man’s ring had caught Godric’s lip, and he could taste blood in his mouth. He glared up at the poetry master, who had turned away. Technically speaking, the man was entirely entitled to whip Godric for his faults within an inch of his life if it pleased him to do so, but that didn’t mean he had to thank the bastard for doing it. “Well? I’ve given you orders, boy! You say ‘yes, sir’ when given orders here!” his voice had risen up to something almost, but not quite, like one of those irritating yippy little terriers they’d used to catch rats in Fox Hollow.

“Yes, sir,” Godric gritted out. Somehow, he managed to keep himself from grinding his teeth, but it was a close-run thing. Just another couple of years, he reminded himself, and then he’d be a squire, and expected to follow his knight on his duties. If that didn’t get him out of having to learn to write poetry, he didn’t know what would. He didn’t even know why he’d want to write poetry anyway – any woman he wanted to marry, or even have a bit of fun with, would be one who didn’t want or didn’t need it, because having to do all of this for lessons was bad enough without being asked to do it at home as well. Somehow, though, the face of this hypothetical wife never quite seemed to resolve itself, and his mind strayed back to the girls he had known – most often, it strayed to Rowena, who had inspired at least six of that nebulous ideal woman’s qualities as ‘the opposite of whatever bloody irritating way R’ena is winding me up now’.

The rest of the lesson consisted of a great many long, dull poems about a great many very similar blonde, grey-eyed women with delicate hands and rosy cheeks and gods alone knew what other virtues besides. He wondered idly, doodling on his sheet of parchment and trying to avoid the poetry master’s eye, what you were supposed to do if the girl you fancied had brown hair or freckles or eyes any colour other than grey. Or, for that matter, why there were so many different words for blonde hair, when he’d only ever known one for ‘brown’. Just as he was starting to come to the conclusion that all of these poets had been addressing their work to the same woman, who could be rented out at a half-penny a go to model for anyone who wanted to write poetry, the lesson ended, and he was free to go. Or at least, free to go on to the pages’ next lesson, chivalry, where he took a seat at the very back of the classroom and proceeded to fall asleep within minutes, only to be woken up sharply halfway through the lesson, to the hilarity of his fellow pages, adding another hour to that night’s punishment duty. Worst of all was the boy from the stables, who caught Godric’s eye from across the room and mouthed something that looked like ‘standards’, or possibly ‘I told you so’ before turning back to snicker quietly with the boy next to him.

It was only in the last lesson of the day that things began to look up, as the pages trooped into a long, narrow room with the ubiquitous slit windows and an assortment of chess-tables scattered throughout. The master closed the door behind the last of them with a loud thud, and limped up to the front of the class, the click of his stick on the flagstones the only noise in the room now, despite the lively chatter outside. He was not above average height, with a plain, heavy, weather-beaten sort of face framed by long wings of hair, and the class had fallen silent as soon as he entered the room.

“So, here we all are, then,” he said cheerfully, reaching the lectern at the very front of the classroom. “Back again, as well as ever we were – now, let’s see how much you’ve forgotten since I’ve been away. Pair up! We’ll have a tournament today. Everyone plays everyone, victor raises his hand after every game won. You, there! Come up to the lectern, if you please.” Godric swallowed, and went, but the master regarded him with an almost kindly eye. “I was told we’d have a new arrival,” he said warmly, “Godric, isn’t it? Have you had much training in chess?”

“I learnt from my father when I was small, sir,” Godric replied, the honorific slipping from his mouth almost unheeded. “I think I’m good enough at it.” He coughed, embarrassed. “Don’t know how well I’d hold up here, though.” If it was as well as he had for everything else, he’d end up embarrassing himself before long.

The master gave him a curious sort of sideways look. “Young Eustace is our best at the game,” he said, pointing out the boy from the stables. “I’m sure he’d be willing to give you a few pointers, if you need to refresh your memory. He’s over-confident, to my mind, but that should pass with age.”

Godric couldn’t very well complain, and so Eustace was duly called over and the two of them were sent off to find a board. Well, at least someone looked to be enjoying themselves – Eustace seemed so puffed-up with pride at having been chosen Godric was almost afraid he’d up and float away.

“You do know how to play chess, then?” he asked, in that same supercilious tone he’d used to ask about whether he could read.

Godric’s hackles rose. “Yes,” he said shortly.

“It won’t do you any good to lie, you know. I mean, if you can’t at least put up a decent show of it...” _Before I beat you_ , Godric could almost hear, and right then he resolved to win this bout if it killed him. Eustace seemed to take his sullen silence as a tacit admission that he’d been lying about his claims, but if he did he didn’t trouble to explain the rules. “I don’t suppose you had access to the best teaching out there in the wilds,” he was saying now, “I mean, the stories you hear coming out of the west…makes it sound downright barbarous. Wild beasts, cannibals, giants and monsters…”

Godric ground his teeth as they sat down to board, and claimed the black side without quite knowing why – usually, he preferred to play white, and dominate a game from the outset. The chessmen were still in his hands, and for a moment Godric wondered why that surprised him so.

“The little horse-shaped ones move like this,” Eustace said, in the sort of over-helpful tone you might use with a particularly slow four-year-old, and Godric bit back the urge to thump the obnoxious little brat.

“I know what knights do, thanks,” he replied through gritted teeth. Eustace raised his eyebrows at him, looking flatly incredulous, and Godric knew he would never be satisfied with winning. He wanted to _annihilate_ the smug little git.

“Well, if you’re sure,” Eustace said, smiling thinly, and moved a pawn two places forward. Godric did the same, making sure to leave a column between his pawn and Eustace’s, and watched as Eustace moved the pawn in that column forward by one. It was the f-pawn, and only then did Godric realise what was happening. No. No, surely it wasn’t- He couldn’t be that stupid…he risked a look at Eustace, to see him hiding a smile behind his hand, looking around to catch Orrell’s eye where he sat two chessboards along. No, not stupid, then. Trying to make a fool of him by setting up something that obvious where even a child could see what he was playing at, and let everyone see he couldn’t do it. Grinning with no small degree of malice, Godric slid his queen out to h-4, and watched the smile slide off Eustace’s face like water. He raised his hand, and saw the strategy master start before he hurried over.

“You’ve won already, have you?” he asked, giving Godric an approving look, “All right, let me see the board – oh, _dear_.” Godric had never heard so much wicked glee put into a single word before. “Well, Eustace, it seems you’ve finally met your match. Though it’s your own fault, you know. Fool’s mate!” he gave Eustace a sharp look, “See what I told you about getting too confident, lad!” People were starting to look over at them from the other tables now, and Eustace’s face had gone an ugly, blotchy red. The strategy master rapped the floor with his cane, and they all returned to their own games, though Godric could still see a few stealing glances their way. “Well,” the strategy master said, frowning. “You’ll excuse me for this, Godric, but I’d rather you played again, and this time did it to your full ability, thank you Eustace.” Eustace’s flush cleared a little at that, and he managed a weak nod as the strategy master left. His confidence seemed to return as they set up the board again, Godric playing white this time, only to melt away as the game went on. It wasn’t much more than ten minutes before Godric’s hand shot up again.

Eustace had just enough time before the strategy master descended on them once again to hiss at him: “Just you wait, you little rat! I’ll see you finished here!” It was almost disappointing. Godric had got used to a far better quality of insults than that from his own brothers, and, really, what did Eustace think he was going to do?

He grinned at the boy. “Of course you are,” he said cheerfully. “Go on, then, let’s see you.”

The strategy master, it turned out, had been right – Eustace was the best in the class at chess. Had been the best in the class, Godric supposed. After that first disaster, most of the other boys were wary of him, playing defensively and trying to draw him out. Not that it made much difference, in the end. Godric hadn’t had an opponent match him since he first beat his father at the age of nine, and this lot – most had only been playing a year or two. Some, the very smallest boys, had started barely months ago. They were no challenge, not really. He spun it out, for them, tried to make them feel a bit less foolish, but it was more like a cat playing with a mouse than a proper game, and so he soon tired of it and rushed them into mate.

The strategy master only came around again at the end of the last bout, when Godric was going up against the boy from before with the curly hair.

“It seems I am going to have to stop having tournaments,” he said, by way of greeting. “How long did you say you had been playing?”

Godric’s ears burnt. “Since I was six,” he muttered, “And I’d been watching Dad and my brothers for a couple of years before that.”

“I’d thought it might be something like that,” the master said thoughtfully, “Your family were fond of the game, then?”

“Tas- Father loved it,” Godric admitted, “And all of us boys were taught. Everyone agreed I was the best, though. Well, best in the family, anyway,” he added, feeling the heat rush to his face now.

“I can well imagine that,” the strategy master said dryly. “All right, boys! You may stop now.” It was rather a waste of a sentence, as half the room already had their hands raised in triumph. “The ending scores are thus: Sweyn and Orrell are tied, having won only two games each…” Godric didn’t listen to most of the list – most of the other boys still weren’t talking to him, and those that did had mostly been the cocky ones, the ones who had thought his wins against Eustace just the result of good luck and his opponent’s overconfidence. He hadn’t learnt enough of their names to even be sure who was being called each time, except for what guesses he could make by their reactions as the list was being recited. ‘Sweyn’ was a small, scrawny boy who didn’t look much more than ten, while ‘Morcant’ was the pretty, girlish one with that distinctive mop of curls who caught Godric’s eye and grinned at him from across the room. “…and, in first place, having won every single game, is Godric,” the master finished, and Godric felt pride bloom beneath his ribcage. Across the room, Eustace was looking at him with murder in his eyes. Godric just grinned at him, still high on his own success, and for the first time that day felt he might be able to make this work after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. Sorry about this. The historical inaccuracy I can't do anything about, so just assume that this takes place in the same sort of odd supposedly-Dark-Ages-but-feels-more-like-late-middle-ages world as pretty much everything King Arthur and that the fall of Camelot sparked a major regression in technology levels. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  
> One thing I'm not sticking to, however, is the exact continuity of events mentioned in What's Past. I'm trying to organise this into a timeline that works, focusing mainly on the other three founders, and so things might appear a bit different - I do mean to go back and sort that out, however, once I've got everything sorted here.  
> Grima, for those who haven't either already guessed or else read my tumblr posts, is Salazar. He won't start going by that name for a while now, mostly because it's Spanish in origin and the Fens were at this point in time a complete Anglo-Saxon backwater.  
> Apologies for any ableism expressed, but Dark Ages attitudes towards disability were far from kind and it would have felt out of joint with the setting and characters to excise this.


End file.
